In the San Jorge they performed historic surgery

The advances of science day by day exceed the capacity for amazement of many people and when those achievements are local, it is even more reason to show them to the world. This is how a successful intrauterine maternal-fetal surgery in the sixth month of gestation is the most recent achievement of the flagship hospital of Risaraldenses.

To have a better understanding of the process, Dr. Javier Alejandro Gaviria, manager of the San Jorge University Hospital, indicated that “The hospital leads everything related to this type of surgery at a regional level, for this we have a high-level team, highly qualified and supported by the necessary technology to provide this service, providing security and confidence to all mothers and babies by saving their lives”.

The medical coordinator of the hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology, Juan José Ospina, expressed: “From the Maternal and Child Area we are fully committed to providing safety to our patients. A correction of myelomelingocele or spina bifida has been performed in the mother’s uterus. Our multidisciplinary team has been a pioneer in our region after carrying out this type of intervention”.

The role of specialists

“We are very satisfied because this is the first time in the region that we perform one of the most complex surgeries in the area of ​​fetal medicine that consists of correcting a neural tube defect in the uterus in a baby that has a hernia of the meninges. and with a very high risk of neurological compromise after birth”, said Dr. Leidy Guzmán, specialist in Perinatology and Fetal Surgery.

The surgery was carried out through general anesthesia to the mother, to be able to perform the surgery by caesarean section (they removed the uterus), through a very small incision to be able to find the defect and correct it. Later they closed the cavity and introduced the uterus inside the patient’s womb so that the gestation process could continue. Dr. Guzmán assured that “prenatal correction is very important, because it has been shown to benefit babies, preventing them from developing nervous system complications, such as hydrocephalus.”

The neurosurgeon of the San Jorge Hospital, Adriana Milena Páez, commented: “in this case, what the service in our area did was a primary closure of the defect after the entire surgical process carried out by the fetal surgeons, what is the objective of this? Reducing the risk that these babies accumulate excessive fluid in the head that causes hydrocephalus and leads to many alterations in children’s motor, psychological, and mental development, and may additionally be associated with convulsive syndrome.”

With this intervention, we want to prevent this infant from experiencing difficulties in learning or developing language in the future, as well as the part of locomotion or movement and all those functions that specialists define as higher mental functions. “This reduces the probability that the baby will require a high-risk procedure in the postnatal period, which is the ventricular peritoneal shunt, which consists of a hose through the brain so that the liquid does not accumulate, but which increases the risk of brain infections and obstructions, risks that can be minimized by performing surgery before birth”, stated Dr. Guzmán.

What is spina bifida?

It is a birth defect that occurs when the spine and spinal cord do not form properly. A type of congenital anomaly, the neural tube is the structure of a developing embryo that eventually becomes the baby’s brain, spinal cord, and surrounding tissues. It forms early in pregnancy and closes 28 days after conception. In babies with spina bifida, a portion of the neural tube does not close or develop properly, causing problems with the spinal cord and the bones of the spine.