Researchers have successfully performed the first-ever in-utero surgery to repair a fetus's life-threatening brain malformation, called vein of Galen malformation, preventing heart failure and brain injury after birth. Using ultrasound guidance, researchers repaired the malformation deep in the brain of a fetus before birth. The infant has required no medication to treat heart failure and no postnatal surgery to treat the malformation since birth. The procedure has the potential to mark a paradigm shift in managing vein of Galen malformation, reducing the risk of long-term brain damage, disability, or death among these infants.
Doctors have performed a first-of-its-kind brain surgery on a fetus in the womb to repair a malformed blood vessel in the baby's brain. The procedure was conducted as part of an ongoing clinical trial aimed at finding a new way to treat vein of Galen malformation (VOGM), a rare abnormality that affects the blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood from the heart to the brain. The new approach uses an in utero surgery designed to reduce the aggressive blood flow through the VOGM. The trial will include an estimated 20 babies, in total, and the recently treated baby, Denver Coleman, was the first to undergo the procedure.
Doctors have performed a successful in utero surgery to repair a rare and potentially deadly prenatal condition in a fetus. In a two-hour procedure, doctors used ultrasound imaging to guide a needle through the uterus of the mother and into a vein in the back of the fetus’s head. The tiny patient was the first in a clinical trial currently underway at Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, performed with oversight from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and was delivered by induced vaginal birth two days after the procedure.
