These news that give account of the advances in fetal surgery and that manage to save the lives of many babies still to be born do not cease to pleasantly surprise me. In this case it has been a intrauterine intervention performed on twins the one that has been successful in a Madrid hospital.
The complication observed in this pregnancy was a severe fetal-fetal transfusion syndrome, that is to say, the twins who shared placenta did not receive the same amount of blood flow, with which there is an imbalance that can seriously affect the development of fetuses.
With this operation, the survival rate is 75% for a twin and 50% for both, and this is currently the only curative treatment. It reduces the risk of losing both babies to 15 or 20%, and decreases the rates of neurological sequelae below 5%.
It was the first endoscopic fetal surgery by laser photocoagulation in the Community of Madrid, carried out by specialists in fetal medicine of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital. Actually, this operation took place in April of this year, and since then Gregorio Marañón hospital has performed 4 other cases of endoscopic fetal surgery, all of them successfully.
The mother was discharged at 72 hours, since it is a minimally invasive surgery. Hopefully, progress in this regard will continue to bring good news and give hope to many families.
