Surgeons in Abu Dhabi have successfully treated an Emirati newborn baby suffering from a rare congenital malformation of the intestine, which led to perforation of the small bowel, filling his whole abdomen with fluid which required immediate intervention to save his life.

The case was diagnosed at the Fetal Medicine Unit of Danat Al Emarat Hospital, part of United Eastern Medical Services, during the 34th week of gestation, and the baby was delivered few days later due to progressive worsening in the unborn baby’s condition.

After birth, immediate medical attention to support breathing was required, followed by a thorough surgical evaluation due to increased abdominal distention and clinical deterioration for which a four-hour urgent surgery was performed to save the baby’s life.

According to international published medical and scientific journals, the newborn’s rare case is considered the first in the UAE and the third published case worldwide, the hospital said.
 
Mohammed Ali Al Shorafa Al Hammadi, CEO of United Eastern Medical Services, said: “The capabilities of our medical multi-disciplinary team at Danat Al Emarat Hospital are evident in managing rare and complex cases. The newborn was treated in a timely manner in the hospital’s level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Pediatric Surgery department led by a team of internationally-trained physicians.”

“The development of a comprehensive scope of medical services including fetal medicine, pediatrics and neonatology, pediatric surgery along with an advanced neonatal intensive care unit led by an experienced medical team are all essential in caring for high risk pregnancies, rare cases, sick newborns and premature babies,” he added.

Dr Raja Cingapagu, pediatric surgeon at Danat Al Emarat Hospital, who performed the baby’s successful surgery along with a surgical team of various specialties, said: “During the surgery, the defective bowel, which was 15-cm-long, was resected. The healthy bowels were reconnected to each other and the abdominal cavity was cleared."

He noted that a newborn’s small intestines are 100 cm long, and that resecting 15 cm of it posed no risk to the baby, as babies’ bowels grow until they are 600 cm long in adulthood. However, the baby needs regular check-up for nutritional assessment and supplementation if required.

Dr Cingapagu said the surgery was considered complex for a number of reasons, including the fact that the case was extremely rare, the baby was premature and there was so much fluid in his abdominal cavity, which made addressing the cause of the problem very difficult.

“This case is complex, rare, the first of its kind in the UAE and the third of its kind in the world according to medical references, whereas the first case took place in 1979, and the second in 2005 in France,” he said.

After surgery, the baby was nursed in NICU by the team of neonatologists led by Dr Iviano Ossuetta, for two weeks and recovered well, without any complication, the hospital said. - TradeArabia News Service