Thursday06 February 2025
ord-02.com

Neurosurgeons in Lviv have saved a newborn from paralysis.

Due to a congenital spinal cord tumor, the child's body below the neck was paralyzed.
Нейрохирурги Львова спасли новорожденного от паралича.

Specialists at the St. Nicholas Hospital in Lviv saved a baby from paralysis, as the child's body below the neck was paralyzed due to a congenital spinal cord tumor. The infant was unable to move either arms or legs. The surgery was performed on the sixth day after birth.

Yulia Madzei from Busk learned about her son's congenital defect during her pregnancy. The woman was registered in Busk and everything seemed fine. However, at the 32nd week of pregnancy, she decided to undergo a routine examination in Lviv, as reported by the hospital.

“I felt that I needed to do the third ultrasound in Lviv. It was here that the doctors discovered something they admitted they had never seen in their practice before. A cyst, that is, a tumor, began to grow in my son's spinal cord even before he was born,” Yulia recounted.

In Kyiv, the woman underwent an in-utero MRI of the child, which confirmed the suspicions of the Lviv doctors. The woman with the fetal pathology was referred to Lviv for delivery at the St. Nicholas Hospital, where she gave birth to her son. The baby could not move either arms or legs. His entire body below the neck was paralyzed. The boy was immediately taken to the neonatal intensive care unit and then to the neurosurgery department.

“We performed an MRI on the second day of the child's life and clearly saw that this was an intramedullary cyst of the cervical-thoracic region. The neoplasm had grown in utero right in the middle of the child's spinal cord and was literally beginning to crush it. This led to the fact that the baby could not move his limbs, as the spinal cord is responsible for our movements and sensitivity,” said Taras Mykytyn, head of the neurosurgery department.

The baby was operated on the sixth day of his life. At the time of the intervention, the cyst measured 4x2.5 cm, while the diameter of the spinal canal (the area where the tumor formed) was only 0.5 cm. First, the neurosurgeons made an incision on the patient's back and located the cyst, then, under the supervision of neurophysiologists, they cut a portion of the spinal cord and removed the neoplasm.

The operation lasted three hours and was successful. The very next day after the intervention, physical therapists began working with the tiny patient. Now, the baby is moving his arms and legs like all infants do.