Foetus survives surgery

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 8

Foetus survives surgery

NZPA Chicago For the first time, a human foetus has. survived out-of-the-womb surgery and returned to its mother’s uterus, the “Chicago Tribune” reports. - It long has been thought impossible to remove a human foetus from the womb and successfully replace it. All earlier, attempts to do so failed, although the operation has succeeded in sheep. The main threat is miscarriage. The foetus underwent surgery to correct a urinary tract obstruction that would have killed it, the newspaper said in a copyright story. The mother, who was not identified, was about 24 weeks pregnant, the paper said. However, the baby died after birth from undeveloped lungs, a complication unrelated to the surgery, the newspaper said.

The operation was conducted earlier this year at the Unversity of California at San Francisco by Drs Michael Harrison, Mitchell Golbus, and Roy Filly, after years of research on animal foetuses, the “Tribune” said, without indicating the source of its report. “The fact that the pregnancy continued to term is regarded by medical experts as a major breakthrough and the most dramatic development in the amazing new field of foetal surgery and foetal medicine,” the “Tribune” said. Dr Harrison declined to comment on the case ’until an account of it is published in a medical journal, the newspaper said. But he did say: “We have come along far enough in our animal experiments where it looks like we can do the procedure

in humans.” The same team of doctor'sperformed another foetal surgery first on April 29, but that foetus remained in the womb. They inserted a needle through a woman’s abdomen and into the bladder of her unborn baby to correct a life-threatening blockage of the urinary tract. Researchers are worried that foetal surgery may get opt of hand with inexperienced doctors. rushing to try it, the “Tribune” said.

It quoted Dr Harrison as saying: “I have this tremendous fear that it could turn into the shambles that occurred with heart transplants. A lot of inexperienced surgeons all over the world tried heart transplants because they wanted .to get their names in the paper. I think that is terribly dangerous.”