The Guangdong TV News Channel last week featured a special story about a medical team at SCUT’s Affiliated Guangdong General Hospital (GGH). The team, led by Professor Zhuang Jian, successfully operated the first fetal heart surgery in China, which marked a key progress in treating congenital heart disease (CHD).
For a long time, fetal heart surgery was considered as a “forbidden zone” of life. “In China, there was no record of surgical intervention in treating fetal heart disease,” said in the TV story, “and even around the world, it is rare to find documents concerning therapies of fetal cardiac tumor.”
Zhuang Jian, who is currently Dean of SCUT’s School of Medicine and Director of the GGH, convened a team consisting of over 40 members to treat a 32-week fetus who suffered cardiac fibroma.
During two operations that lasted five and a half hours, they first finished a surgical intervention without cutting the umbilical cord, and then successfully removed the tumor via a second surgery.
The recovery of the fetus’ heart meant doctors in China had made a huge leap in developing techniques of treating CHD – it is now possible to start medical intervention from the fetal stage rather than the neonate stage.
Following the above achievement, Zhuang Jian and his team also managed to carry out in utero treatment of fetal heart disease.
Founded in 1946, the GGH is the affiliated hospital of SCUT and one of the largest general hospitals in China. It started from 2004 in Guangdong to build a network of CHD control and prevention, which now covers all the 21 cities of the province and has taken effective measures to contain the disease from the very beginning.
To watch the full story run by Guangdong TV (in Chinese), please follow this link:
Source from the School of Medicine
Translated by Xu Peimu
Edited by Xu Peimu and Cheng Yu
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