The procedure was carried out by a team from Shenzhen Baoan Women’s and Children’s Hospital and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, South China Morning Post reported. Chinese doctors have successfully shrunk a potentially life-threatening lung tumour in an unborn baby without making an incision, using a minimally invasive microwave procedure while the baby was still in the womb. The case was published on August 20 in the peer-reviewed journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynaecology.
The baby had also developed ascites, a dangerous build-up of fluid in the abdomen. The results were seen within days. Three days after the procedure, the tumour had shrunk significantly and the fluid build-up in the baby’s abdomen had disappeared. Doctors described the case as a milestone in foetal medicine but cautioned that the procedure’s safety and effectiveness cannot be established from a single case. If further research shows that the technique is safe, effective and reproducible, microwave ablation could potentially become another treatment option for severe cases of CPAM.
In this case, doctors discovered the problem when the mother was 22 weeks pregnant. Scans showed that the growth had reached about 5 cm and occupied much of the baby’s right chest, severely compressing the heart and lungs.
