Orthopedic
Androniki (Nina) Drakou, born in 1965, is an Orthopedic Surgeon specializing in limb reconstruction and complex skeletal defects. She trained in the UK NHS and received further training in Distraction Osteogenesis in England, the USA, and Russia.
She has specialized in the Ilizarov method for bone lengthening for over 20 years, as well as in all the latest cutting-edge technologies and applications of Distraction Osteogenesis.
She was the first to perform limb lengthening in Greece with the PRECICE lengthening nail. She holds an MBBS degree (1991) from the Medical School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a Master of Philosophy (MPhil, 2008) from the University of Sheffield, UK, and a BTEC Postgraduate Diploma in the principles of computer-assisted knee arthroplasty (PCAKA, 2011) from the University of Glasgow, UK.
Currently, she is the Clinical & Scientific Director of the Orthopedic Department at the General Hospital of Athens “Laiko” as well as the Director of the only “Reference Center for Rare Bone Diseases” (KSSN) in Greece.
Her main interests are in the fields of:
- Limb reconstruction after complex trauma, bone infection, rare skeletal diseases, and
- Computer-assisted/robotic hip and knee arthroplasty.
She is the first and main user—within the NHS—of the latest generation bone transport nails and is a member of the “beta-surgeons world” group that records the behavior of the nail in a global registry.
She has organized conferences and seminars on the principles and techniques of limb reconstruction in Greece and is a Lab Demonstrator at the annual “Baltimore Limb Deformity Course” (Maryland, USA).
She is a member of the Hellenic College of Orthopedic Surgeons, the European Bone and Joint Infection Society, an associate member of the “Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction Society of North America” and the “British Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction Society” of the UK.
Her ongoing research includes:
- The use of antibiotic carriers in the treatment of osteomyelitis, and
- The role of oxidative stress in bone reconstruction phenomena.
For her work and ongoing research, she has been awarded and has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Ms. Drakou has participated in humanitarian missions worldwide within the framework of the humanitarian organization “MiST” and has collaborated with “Doctors Without Borders” in the program titled “For the rehabilitation and treatment of victims of torture.”
She holds a piano diploma from the Thrace Conservatory (1982) and has participated in Japanese micro-sculpture art exhibitions in 2009 and 2010 in Athens, under the guidance of sculptor Maria Gkini.