Oscar (bionic cat)

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Oscar (born 2007) is a black house cat from Jersey . She became internationally known as the first cat to be operated on with bionic limbs. She has prosthetic feet. A book and several documentaries cover the unusual story.

Life

In October 2009, at the age of two and a half, Oscar lost both paws on his back legs in an accident with a combine harvester . The paws were severed between the ankle and foot. A cyclist brought the badly injured cat home. Mike Nolan and Kate Allan, the two owners, were convinced the animal needed to be euthanized and took it to their veterinarian, Peter Haworth.

He cared for the cat's wounds and gave him painkillers. He then referred the owners to Surrey neuro - orthopedic surgeon Noel Fitzpatrick . He saw Oscar as the ideal patient for a new type of operation in which his missing limbs were to be replaced with bionic prostheses. Such an operation had never been done before. The animal surgeon managed to convince the owners of this.

The two prostheses were specially made for Oscar and were named by Fitzpatrick as “Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthetics” (ITAPs). Gordon Blunn and Catherine Pendegrass from the Biomedical Institute at University College London were involved in the development . Their honeycomb structure allows the skin to bond with the implant. The prostheses in the form of two stilts were then inserted into matching holes in the bone and given a special substance that bonds to the bone. The growth of antlers in deer animals was used as a model.

After the first successes of ITAP technology, the first experiments on humans began. A victim of the terrorist attacks on July 7, 2005 in London was successfully treated with the new technology.

In August 2012, Oscar's right prosthesis buckled as a result of a recurring infection where the titanium rod emerged from his stump. Fitzpatrick operated on the cat again and put a so-called "Percutaneous Fixation to Skeleton" (Perfit) in Oscar's shin. As a result, the cat got a new foot.

reception

Noel Fitzpatrick became a star on BBC 1's The Bionic Vet documentary series . In the first documentary in the six-part series, Oscar is shown with a prototype developed at Salford University . On June 18, 2010, a YouTube video was uploaded showing the subsequent prostheses. Finally, another video was released showing the cat after surgery in 2012. Because of the success, Noel Fitzpatrick got his own documentary series on Channel 4 called The Supervet . This was broadcast on Sixx under the title Der Super-Doc - Einsatz für vier Pfoten . Oscar can be seen in episode 1.

In 2013 the book Oscar the Bionic Cat was published , which was written by owner Kate Allan. Oscar was also included in the Guinness Book of Records .

literature

  • Kate Allen: Oscar: The Bionic Cat: A Heart-Warming Tale of Feline Bravery . Summersdale 2013, ISBN 978-1-84953-380-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Ryan Morrison: A cat from Jersey has shot to fame as the 'bionic cat'. In: BBC Online . BBC Jersey, June 25, 2010, accessed June 26, 2010 .
  2. ^ Maria Cheng: Bionic British cat gets faux paws. The Associated Press , accessed June 26, 2010 .
  3. ↑ Liz Thomas: Oscar the bionic cat after pioneering surgery gave him TWO false back legs. In: Daily Mail . June 25, 2010. Retrieved June 26, 2010 .
  4. ^ Sonia Gallego: Oscar the Cat Gets Two Prosthetic Legs. In: ABC News . Retrieved June 26, 2010 .
  5. ↑ Maria Cheng: Cat Oscar: Happy with two prosthetic paws. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . June 28, 2010, accessed July 7, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Sam Jones: Paws for thought: pioneering surgery puts cat back on his feet. In: The Guardian . June 25, 2010. Retrieved June 26, 2010 .
  7. ^ A b Noel Fitzpatrick: Oscar. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 28, 2014 ; accessed on December 28, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fitzpatrickreferrals.co.uk
  8. ↑ The Super Doc. Sixx.de , accessed on July 7, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Jane Warren: Oscar the bionic cat. Sunday Express, March 8, 2013, accessed December 28, 2014 .