A 19-year-old Iraqi girl has been given a new lease of life after a team of doctors from the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital here successfully treated her for a rare spinal disease.

The girl was suffering from spinal arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in which there is an abnormal tangle of blood vessels in or near the spinal cord. The disease can permanently damage the spinal cord if not treated properly and on time, the hospital said in a statement on September 22.

She was hospitalised with progressive quadriplegia -- paralysis caused by illness or injury resulting into partial or total loss of use of all the four limbs and torso. The girl was suffering from this condition for over a month. She also had urine and stool incontinence.

"On re-evaluation of history, we found out that she had an injury two months back, followed by quadriplegia and breathing issues. She took treatment for this in her country but did not respond well to it and her condition kept on worsening," said P.N. Renjen, Senior Consultant, Neurology, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital.

The patient's repeated MRI C-Spine revealed that she had longitudinally extensive hematomyelia (blood in spinal cord) with central cord lesion (C7-D1). Through her DSA angiography reports, the doctors discovered that she had spinal AVM along with C7-D1 as the cause of hematomyelia. "We performed DSA with Embolisation of spinal AVM along with C7-D1 on her. She responded well to the treatment and was discharged within few days after the surgery," Renjen said.