Galina Gheihman was a young athletic girl from Toronto who enjoyed basketball, springboard diving, ballroom dancing and being an excellent student. Unfortunately, she developed spondylolisthesis, which is a displacement of one or more vertebral bodies out of the natural alignment of the spine.
Over time, Galina says, "What had been a dull, aching pain stretching across my lower back was soon joined by shooting, sharp nerve pain running down the backs of my legs and a tingling numbness in my calves." This was no ordinary lower back pain.
Dr. Stephen Lewis of Toronto Hospital for Sick Children diagnosed Galina and performed a delicate surgical procedure using Stryker's Xia 3 Spinal System, which features a buttress thread blocker that helps to eliminate cross-threading, prevents screw head splaying and helps ensure secure closure. With Dr. Lewis' expertise and the Xia 3 Spinal System, Galina fully recovered from what had been a slow descent into pain and immobility and a halt to all of the activities she loved.
As she recuperated and regained her life, she flourished. In fact, today, inspired by her personal experience, Galina is a first-year medical student.
"It's been a dream come true," she says, "and I have my surgeon, Dr. Lewis; Toronto Hospital for Sick Children; and Stryker's products, technology and physician technical support team to thank for it - not only for inspiring me to pursue medicine, but also for making it physically possible for me to do so."
Stryker Corporation is one of the world's leaders in designing, manufacturing, and selling orthopedic equipments. Net sales break down by family of products as follows:
- surgical equipments and neurotechnology products (57.5%): electric motorized surgical instruments, surgical navigation systems, endoscopy equipment, digital imaging systems, neurosurgery equipments, neurovascular devices, etc. The group also offers hospital beds, gurneys, stretchers, and emergency room equipment;
- orthopedic implants (42.5%): joint prostheses, traumatology implants, micro-implants, orthopedic cement, orthobiology products, etc. The group also provides spinal implants.
At the end of 2022, the group had 48 production sites worldwide.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: the United States (73.9%), Europe/Middle East/Africa (12.7%), Asia/Pacific (10.2%) and other (3.2%).
STRYKER CORPORATION 
