MILOMIR NINKOVIC confirms for Nacional that a biopsy was conducted on MondaySoon after SDP president Ivica Racan announced that he was withdrawing from political lide due to a diagnosis of an atypical tumour in his shoulder, the Croatian public learned that Racan is to undergo surgery by reputed plastic surgeon Dr. Milomir Ninkovic in one of the world’s most prominent hospitals, the City Clinic in Munich. Croatia’s best plastic surgeons were unanimous in their assessment that choosing Dr. Ninkovic to do the operation is by far the right choice. Dr. Ninkovic earned his experience in Sarajevo, Innsbruck and Munich as well as in some of the best university hospitals in the US and has received numerous European and American recognitions for his work in hand and fist reconstructive surgery and for his patented innovations in the field of bladder reconstruction. His reputation among German and European doctors is certainly a guarantee that Ninkovic will do all he can to treat Racan.

Ninkovic finished medical school in his hometown of Sarajevo and worked as a specialist in plastic surgery in Kosevo Hospital in Sarajevo right up until 1992. He now lives between Munich where he works and Innsbruck where he lives with his family.

He has presented guest lecturers in all the large European and American clinics, last year presenting his experiences in the prestigious private Planus plastic and aesthetic surgery clinic in Barcelona. Ninkovic is a common guest surgeon in Zagreb hospitals, and he has been appointed an associate professor at Zagreb’s School of Medicine.

NACIONAL: The Croatian public has been informed that Ivica Racan has an atypical shoulder tumour. Is this diagnosis correct?
- For now, no one can precisely say what kind of tumour this is. I don’t want to make any assumptions. The Croatian public has only received speculations for now, including the claim that he has cartilage cancer or a muscle tumour behind the scapula. Mr. Racan received no such diagnosis from anyone at the Bogenhausen Hospital. We will only be able to type what type of tumour this is after doing some tests and a biopsy and conducting microscopic and histological diagnostics.

NACIONAL: What is your experience with shoulder cancers?
- Of course I have common faced shoulder cancers and of all soft tissues, including tumours of all stages: cartilage, muscle, ligaments or joint capsules. It is still too early to say what Racan’s diagnosis is, as the tumour is a new formation. This will be confirmed in the coming days in our hospital. Only then can we decide which surgical operation to do.

NACIONAL: How did the first examination and your first meeting with Ivica Racan go?
- I can honestly say that Racan delighted me with his positive approach to the illness, showing me his will and his sincerity. I hadn’t met him before that. But, he won me over with his warmth. I have had many well known and distinguished patients, and I have the same professional approach with them all, as I will with Racan. But, he won me over with his sincerity, which is something you don’t really expect from a politician.

NACIONAL: Why was the wrong diagnosis of a “frozen” shoulder in place for so long?
- I wouldn’t say that this was the wrong diagnosis. On the contrary, with tumours it is often difficult to make the right diagnosis. Something that appears to be a sports injury later proves to be a tumour after tests. I once had a patient who had an injury above the knee with bleeding, that turned out to be a tumour.

NACIONAL: What will you and your team do in treating Ivica Racan?
- I personally and my team will do all we can to give Racan the best possible treatment, to ensure that he continues to live and work. The team will be formed in the coming days and we will see if we need to bring on anyone else.

NACIONAL: How did you become head of the Plastic Surgery Ward in the famous Bogenhausen Hospital?
- Through a competition. Fifteen candidates were running for the position in 2003, all were Germans except me. But they chose me, because expertise and results to date were the primarily criteria. You can only get this type of a post in Germany if you are a top expert in your work.

NINKOVIC WITH HIS TEAM at Munich’s Bogenhausen HospitalNACIONAL: You continued your career in Innsbruck after leaving Sarajevo.
- That was no coincidence. I have lovely memories both from the City Clinic in Innsbruck, where I worked from 1992 to 2003, and the University, where I became a full professor in 1997. Sarajevo and Innsbruck worked together closely as Olympic host cities, and as such, their two universities became sister universities. In 1990, I was invited as a guest to perform my first operation in Innsbruck. While visiting Sarajevo in 1989, the Head of the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Ward at the Innsbruck Hospital, Dr. Hans Anderl, watched my work in an operation in the Sarajevo clinic and later asked me to give a guest lecture in Innsbruck. We achieved great accomplishments in the Sarajevo Clinic for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, following up from what Dr. Marko Godina had accomplished in reconstructive and microsurgery in Ljubljana. I am always proud to say that I was his student.

NACIONAL: Was Professor Anderl satisfied with your work in Innsbruck?
- He was completely satisfied. I arrived in Innsbruck on Monday, on the Tuesday I was already carrying out fist surgery. This was a serious fist injury of a patient and I assisted under Professor Anderl. The operation was a success and I immediately received an offer to stay in Innsbruck. However, I didn’t accept that offer in 1990.

NACIONAL: Why not?
- Above all, I had excellent working conditions at the Kosevo Clinic. We had an excellent team. Also, at that time, I didn’t speak German, and third, I could see no reason why I should leave Sarajevo. I was a successful doctor, doing exclusively scientific work, I wasn’t involved in politics and it never occurred to me such horrible war destruction and tragedy could take place in the former Yugoslavia. Especially not in Sarajevo. But as soon as the war conflict began, I soon realized that there would be no life there for a scientist. Two years later, I took him up on his offer and moved to Innsbruck.

NACIONAL: In Innsbruck, you achieved remarkable results in hand transplantations. You were particularly known for transplanting a hand onto a police officer who had lost his in a letter bomb.
- That was in 2000, and it was the second transplant of its kind in the world, where we transplanted a hand onto a police officer who had been in an explosion. However, in 2003, I was the first person in the world to transplant an entire forearm and hand from a dead donor onto a living patient. Even earlier, they were doing hand transplants, but in this operation, we succeeded in transplanting all the forearm muscles, right up to the elbow. Every transplant is very complicated and requires the team work of a large number of physicians. In both cases, the transplant patients were patients of my wife Marina, who is a physiologist at the Department of Physical Medicine in the City Clinic in Innsbruck. She lead his rehabilitation.

NACIONAL: However, your greatest success is the LDDN, a surgical procedure that you patented and that is called Ninkovic’s procedure in the medical profession. Tell us about it.
- This is a bladder reconstruction for paralysed patients who could only urinate using a catheter. For this procedure, I received the highest recognition of the European Association of Plastic Surgeons in Amsterdam in 1998. I developed the entire procedure together with my colleague Dr. Arnulf Stenzl, who is Head of Urology at the Tubingen Hospital. The bladder reconstruction was carried out by removing a muscle from the back of paralysed persons and attaching it to a nerve in the lower abdominal wall. The patient without bladder muscles was then able to use the synergism of the abdominal wall, as by activating that muscle in the abdominal wall, the bladder was activated and emptied. In 1998/99, this was assessed to be the best European contribution to the field of plastic surgery. I have successfully carried out this procedure on 45 patients.

Bogenhausen Hospital in Munich, where Racan was admitted on Monday morningNACIONAL: You have also received invitations and awards from prominent American societies for your work.
- The American Association for Reconstructive and Microsurgery granted me exceptional recognition in 2003. After Professor Godina died in 1986, the Americans introduced a special award in his honour for the most promising plastic surgeon. That year, I won the award and a $10,000 scholarship and the right to hold an annual lecture. In early 2004, I held a 40-minute lecture on my accomplishments and discoveries, including the bladder reconstruction before the annual meeting of the American Association. Soon, the overall accomplishments in this field will be published in the American Journal.

NACIONAL: Was this your first American recognition?
- No. Back in 1998, the American Association for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery awarded me a $10,000 scholarship and invited me to do a five-month specialisation at any American university. I chose Harvard and there co-operated with numerous American doctors. I learned most from my cooperation with Professor Julian Pribaz, whose family comes from near Trieste, and who worked in Brigham and Women’s Hospital. After my specialisation, I held presentations and lectures in other American centres: in the M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, in Dallas, New York and Philadelphia. In some elements, the work we did in Sarajevo and later in Innsbruck was better than what was being done at Harvard. Our physicians are not lacking in knowledge and competence, but just the confidence to do well and to better present our results and findings.

NACIONAL: In recent years, you have made many visits to Croatia. How is your cooperation with Croatian doctors?
- Excellent. I have attended virtually all the congresses of Croatian plastic surgeons since 2000 in Split, Zagreb and Opatija. I have excellent cooperation with my colleagues from Split and Zagreb. I have conducted several operations in Zagreb. In Zagreb, I conducted a complex operation to reconstruct the lower jaw of a Croatian veteran who had been injured in the war, the first operation of this type in Croatia. After the operation, his lower jaw and lips were functionally and aesthetically balanced. I have also done many breast reconstructions at Rebro.

NACIONAL: You often make personal visits to Croatia?- I love being in Croatia and spend a great time of my free time in and around Sibenik. My wife Marina is from Sibenik. We spend our vacations on the Adriatic with our children Marijana and Sinisa, in Srima near Vodice. Here I plan to organize my 50^th birthday party and invite all my friends and colleagues from BiH, Austria, Croatia and Germany.