Surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio successfully performed an operation to remove a rare type of tumor that had formed on a patient’s heart.
But the most remarkable aspect of the operation was that the “patient” was still in the womb.
The need for surgery became apparent after Sam Drinnon’s ultrasound scan revealed a mass on the heart of her 27-week fetus during an ultrasound scan last April. Subsequent tests confirmed the diagnosis of an exceptionally rare disease called cardiac teratoma. The tumor literally choked the heart, and the doctors of the clinic considered that without an operation, the fetus would not live even two weeks. Such a successful operation on an unborn fetus is only the second in the world. The first was held at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2013.
36 hours after discussing the situation with the mother, lead surgeon Darrell Kass and his team opened the fetal chest, removed the tumor, and then returned the fetus to the uterus to continue gestation. After 10 weeks, Drinnon gave birth to a healthy boy named Ryland. “But the effects of heart surgery at such a ‘young’ age will need to be monitored for at least the next two years,” says pediatric cardiologist Francine Ehrenberg, who took part in the operation. “But we think the outlook is optimistic.”
Newspaper headline:
Miracles of Surgery