The operation has only been carried out around fifty times in the world until today, underlined Thursday the Cardiovascular Institute of the Saint-Luc University Clinics in Brussels, whose pediatric cardiology department coordinated the procedure.
The operation took place just hours after the birth of the little patient, who suffered from an extremely low heart rate.
The disorder had already been spotted in utero. Transplacental treatment was administered from 24 weeks of pregnancy in order to accelerate the heart rate, minimize the risk of cardiac decompensation or even death in utero and bring the fetus as far into the pregnancy as possible, under close medical supervision. “Given the significant risk of premature birth and low birth weight, the medical team turned to a device never used in Belgium: the micro-pacemaker from the firm ‘Medtronic’. More suited to the reduced weight of the infant , this device also makes it possible to reduce hospitalization time, avoiding the need for other alternatives (intravenous drug treatment, temporary pacemaker) to accelerate the heart before the operation”, specify the Saint-Luc University Clinics. “As this micro-pacemaker had never been implemented in Belgium, the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) had to issue an agreement.”
