In what could be a game-changer in medical science, a team of doctors has performed brain surgery on an unborn baby in the fetus to treat a rare condition. Fetal surgery was performed to treat the condition known as Vein of Galen Malformation (VOGM).
It is a type of rare blood vessel abnormality inside the brain, which, according to Boston Children’s Hospital, happens when arteries in the brain connect directly with veins, instead of connecting with capillaries, which help slow blood flow.
The in-utero surgery was performed before the baby was born, guided by ultrasound procedures. The details of the surgery have been published in the journal Stroke, which states that the procedure resulted in the complete elimination of the expected aggressive postnatal natural history.
“This approach represents a paradigm shift in the management of this challenging condition, from a strategy focused on reversing severe multiorgan pathophysiology after onset to one focused instead on prevention,” the team of doctors wrote in the paper.
The condition causes blood to rush toward the heart and lungs, forcing them to work overtime to get blood to the rest of the body. This can lead to congestive heart failure in some infants. Meanwhile, it could also lead to a jump in blood pressure in the arteries from the heart to the lungs.
“50 to 60 percent of all babies with this condition will get very sick immediately. And for those, it looks like there’s about a 40 percent mortality,” Dr. Darren Orbach, a radiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, who was part of the surgery told CNN.
“Baby was doing well. The anatomy scan came back unremarkable. All of her biophysical profiles were all unremarkable. We honestly thought that we were in the clear,” Kenyatta Coleman, mother of the baby told CNN.
The condition was found in an ultrasound when the fetus was 30 weeks old and doctors told the parents that the baby had an enlarged heart after which VOGM was diagnosed.
The surgery was performed when the fetus was just over 34 weeks of gestational age.
Following the procedure, the baby was born and the paper highlighted that the three-week-old baby has so far not required any cardiovascular support and no postnatal embolization. The neurological exams have also been normal.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has also shown further improvement in the condition.
