Woman's jaw rebuilt with 'bike chain'

Surgeons used a bike chain to rebuild a mother’s jaw – and save her life. Until Liese Healing saw her post-op X-ray, she had no idea the bike chain type device had been used to reconfigure her jaw after it was ravaged by cancer. The 49-year-old had been told she might die without life-saving surgery after being diagnosed with cancer of the jaw last July.

Liese, who lives in the Rokeby area of Rugby, underwent the 12-hour procedure in September. She’d been referred to the hospital by her dentist after two of her teeth started falling out and she had pains in her mouth. Tests found cancer had reduced her jaw to half the size it should be. She was told part of her jaw would have to be removed – but skin from elsewhere on her body would form her new jaw and metal plates would hold it together.

Liese was stunned when two months later she saw what the metal plates resembled in a post-op x-ray. She said: “My first reaction was ‘oh my God I’ve got a bike chain in my mouth’. Specialist head and neck surgeons at Coventry’s University hospital, Gary Walton and Raj Sandhu, cut from behind her ear and along her jawline to her chin. They then peeled back her face before the delicate task of reconstructing her jaw could begin.

The diseased parts of her jaw and mouth tissues were then removed before skin with a vein and artery from an arm was transplanted to the jaw area, giving the new tissue a blood supply so it would survive. The titanium chain was then fitted around her new reconstructed jaw. Mr Walton then took skin from Lisa’s stomach and grafted it onto her arm to replace that which had been taken away. Liese spent a month in hospital recovering from the operation.