Doctors at CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles performed heart surgery on a 25-week old unborn baby to open up a narrow aortic valve.
The Los Angeles Times reported that after practicing with a model of jello and a grape – with the grape standing in for the tiny heart and the jello representing the surrounding body – the doctors performed the procedure on September 25th using a wire the width of a hair, a balloon a few millimeters wide, and a needle measuring 11 centimeters exactly.
The procedure, known as fetal aortic valvuloplasty, was the first ever performed in Southern California.
The ultrasound video below shows a portion of the surgery in which the surgeon is manipulating a needle through the baby’s heart, and stopping when it is directed toward the narrow aortic valve.
Fetal cardiologist Dr. Jay Pruetz of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles diagnosed the unborn baby as having severe aortic stenosis, a condition in which the aortic valve is very tight. Blood had been backing up in the left ventricle of the baby’s heart, keeping it from pumping normally.
Without surgery, the left ventricle would not develop properly, and the baby would most likely be born with a life-threatening condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS).
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