A five-year-old girl suffering from a rare form of scoliosis has been cured with magnets in a first for Italy. The girl, who weighed just 11 kg (24 pounds, or one stone 10 pounds), presented with a form of the disease that had never been diagnosed before. She was operated on at Turin's Regina Margherita Hospital.

For the first time in such a case, magnetic 'growing bars' were used, doctors said. These enabled doctors to correct the scoliosis without subsequent surgical interventions to lengthen the spine, they said. The innovative and mini-invasive technique enabled the patient to resume a normal life after just a week, doctors said.