A pioneering operation was carried out on an unborn child by a medical team from Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Recently, an amazing brain operation was performed for the first time in the United States.
Derek and Kenyatta Coleman are from Louisiana. Their pregnancy was considered to be normal before a strange finding was made at their 30-week scan. They were then faced with the decision of whether to treat their unborn child.
Doctors found Baby Denver had a vein of Galen malformation, a rare blood vessel abnormality inside the brain, during a routine ultrasound when she was developing normally inside her mother. With this illness, many infants get heart failure or brain damage and frequently pass away. Denver’s heart was actually having trouble, and the abnormality was growing to hazardous proportions.
So, using ultrasound guidance, an amniocentesis-style needle, and tiny coils placed directly into the abnormal blood vessels to stop blood flow, a team from Boston Children’s and Brigham was able to repair her malformation while she was still inside the uterus at 34 weeks of pregnancy. The procedure was part of an FDA-approved clinical trial.
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