Performing delicate surgery in the womb, months before birth, can substantially improve outcomes for children with a common, disabling birth defect of the spine. Experts at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) co-led a new landmark study showing that fetal surgery for spina bifida greatly reduces the need to divert fluid from the brain, improves mobility and improves the chances that a child will be able to walk independently.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/chop/48124/
Little Colby Boudreaux is moving his legs and feet. While this is something most parents take for granted, for Colby it’s remarkable. He underwent a life-changing surgery at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans to correct the myelomeningocele birth defect, the most serious form of spina bifida… 12 weeks before he was born. During a groundbreaking surgery, Ochsner Medical Center’s fetal surgery team of 18 physicians and nurses operated on the 23-week-old fetus while still in his mother’s uterus, a procedure that fewer than 10 hospitals in the United States are able to perform.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/59661-ochsner-medical-center-first-in-utero-surgery-corrects-mmc-birth-defect
Eighteen years after opening its internationally prominent Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) celebrates 1,000 fetal surgeries – highly complex surgical interventions to repair birth defects in the womb. Approximately 4,000 fetal surgeries have been done worldwide, meaning a quarter of them have been performed at CHOP, the largest number of any hospital in the world.
To view the Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/62038-children-s-hospital-of-philadelphia-celebrates-1000-fetal-surgeries
