BENGALURU: What’s common between the world’s youngest Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai and a 20-year-old accident victim in Bengaluru? Both underwent the same medical procedure following close encounters with death.

A skull bone stored in the abdomen of 20-year-old Revanth (named changed) has given him a second chance at life. Revanth met with an accident on March 26 while on his way to college on his two-wheeler. Doctors at St Martha’s Hospital, where he was rushed, decided to remove his injured skull bone and let the brain swell up to ease blood flow.

Today, Revanth’s abdomen shelters a portion of his skull. After three weeks, this bone will be put back in the brain in a procedure called decompressive craniotomy that’s considered a last resort for patients with brain injury. Here the injured skull bone is removed to let the brain swell to avoid compressions.

Pakistan’s teen icon Malala also underwent the same surgery after she was shot by Taliban militants in October 2012.

Dr Krishnaprasad M, consultant neurosurgeon, St Martha’s Hospital, who operated on Revanth, said there was blood clot on the right side of the patient’s brain. “A skull bone flap, 10-cm long and 7-cm wide, has been removed and place in the sub-cutaneous pouch of the abdomen. This makes way for the brain to swell up and eases blood flow to the organ. After three weeks, the same bone flap will be placed back in the skull. We could have gone for alternative methods like using high-graded metallic mesh. But we may not have got the desired shape and hence avoided it,” said Dr Krishnaprasad.

Why the abdominal pouch?

It’s the safest place available in the human body to store a skull bone. The body doesn’t discard it as a foreign material, explained Dr Krishnaprasad. “Refrigerating the bone flap was not an option as there could be variations in temperatures in case of a power cut. Placing it in the patient’s abdomen was the safest option,” he added.