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SURGEONS IN MIAMI have announced the achievement of a medical first – the successful removal of a tumour from a unborn baby through in utero surgery.
Doctors at the Jackson Memorial hospital yesterday revealed details of the surgery for the first time, over two years after the surgery was originally carried out.
At the conference, Tammy Gonzalez revealed how she had gone into the hospital for a routine ultrasound at 17 weeks – when the scan showed what looked like a large ‘bubble’ being blown from her daughter’s mouth.
The bubble, the size of a peach, was diagnosed as a foetal oral teratoma – which had grown at an alarming rate, having not shown up on a scan a few weeks earlier.
The Guardian summarises that there were two options for treating the difficulty – either to take affirmative action immediately, on a level which had never been done before, or allow the baby to grow further before having it delivered early and undergo corrective surgery.
(YouTube: JacksonHealthSystem)
Given the risks of the former – which would have involved a series of surgeries, and the possibility that the tumour could continue to balloon in the meantime, resulting in fatal bleeding – it was decided to attempt a radical in utero surgery.
Dr Ruben Quintero, who carried out the surgery, described the surgery relatively simply – saying doctors made a quarter-of-an-inch incision in Tammy’s womb and used a precision laser to essentially slice the tumour off her daughter’s lip.
The Huffington Post said the surgery had an immediate effect – as Tammy, who only underwent local anaesthetic for the surgery, was able to watch the ‘bubble’ literally float away and disappear from view.
“It was like this huge weight had been lifted off me. It just floated away and I could finally see her face,” it quotes her as saying.
The tumour, safely removed and neutralised, was allowed to remain in a cavity in Tammy’s womb where it was removed after her daughter Leyna was safely delivered at full term.
Leyna was born at a healthy 8 lb, 1 oz weight – and doctors say given the progress she has made in the two years since then, they are satisfied the tumour will not grow back.
The Miami Herald said the tumour was so rare that it would occur only once in every 100,000 pregnancies – and that while the hospital carries out 150 ‘minimally invasive’ surgeries every year, this was the first time any oral teratoma has been successfully removed before a child was born.
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The wonders of medicine and science..
Absolutely.
It truly is a wonder that people can hold the closely edited words of a book written thousands of years ago, containing some utterly horrific things in itself, as the truth about life and the world around us when we have godless scientists the world through performing more miracles every day than anything ever did in the name of a God. Not just performing miracles, but unravelling the unknown and making the absolute beauty of reality available to all in their publications.
Can’t help fawn over science. How dare religious nuts hold it back.
What a great story, fantastic doctors!! It’s amazing what they can do with lasers these days!
Yes, its an amazing story. In the UK the advice given for a similar pregnancy is to abort it.
And they couple were advised to abort.. Which is not mentioned above.
This is great news! However, there is something odd with medical practice when these great treatments are available in one part of a hospital, while in another part of the same hospital babies are being aborted…
it says nothing in this article about abortion. why bring it up? itching for an argument eh? can you not just be pleased that such an amazing thing happened at leave it at that.
Listen, either science knows best or it doesn’t. Stop picking and choosing.
This great news came about because scientists researched it, tested it, studied results and repeated until it was deemed to be safe, usable and not harm inflicting.
The same kind of research was done on abortion.
If you’re annoyed by science operating on pregnancies to terminate them then you should be equally annoyed when science interferes with your “God”s plan for a pregnancy, including any tumours or defects that may come with it.
You can’t have it both ways, science contradicts your beliefs at every turn, embrace one or the other.
@AlMar. That’s daft. Obviously in the other part of the hospital they’re working on clumps of cells and not babies. Amazing what perception despite the facts can accomplish. Much in the same way the Jews were dispatched as being sub-human in Germany, and the Hutus dispatched the Tutsi ‘cockroaches’ in Rwanda in 94.
There’s 2 articles on here today where you can argue about abortion. This isn’t one of them
Abortions for some; miniature American flags for others.
@itchymcscratvhy – you ain’t the boss of me! Remember that.
@wolfgang. For a person with a love affair with science and reason, you’ve a very impoverished thought process on abortion. Here’s the news from New Scientist – you don’t have to be a god botherer to find abortion problematic. You might want to update your scientific research on the issue. Just saying, is all.
I was talking to almar,not you Andrew…….
I was thinking the same thing…however Its a fantastic story… She is a beautiful little girl.
What a great story, it’s actually lifted my mood for the day, hats off to all involved in making this happen, medical science rocks!!
Good news for a change! Amazing!
great story! should make us think how lucky we are in the west while in Africa 1 in every 2000 mothers dies in child birth and 21 children die each minute..its great news for the lucky few…and for us to be rich and enjoy the wonders of modern medical science..they must be poor
Wow amazing stuff.
WOW
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