Lviv doctors performed brain surgery on a 4-year-old patient from Northern Ireland

A family from the British Isles turned to Ukrainian specialists for help with a complicated surgery to remove part of their 4-year-old child's brain hemisphere. Lviv pediatric neurosurgeons performed the surgery and stopped the development of a life-threatening condition.

This was reported by the First Medical Association of Lviv, UNN reports.

Details

Lviv pediatric neurosurgeons removed a part of the brain hemisphere of a 4-year-old patient from abroad to relieve severe seizures that were life-threatening and hindering the child's development.

As indicated, the family from the British Isles traveled 3000 km to seek help from Ukrainian specialists at the Center for Neurosurgery and Epilepsy Surgery. The center is located at the St. Nicholas Children's Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv: children from different parts of Ukraine are treated here, but this is the first time they have been treated from abroad.

It is noted that 4-year-old Rachel Gribben, who lives in a town in Northern Ireland, was diagnosed with developmental delays and body twitching at the age of two; later the girl suffered her first severe seizure. Doctors diagnosed epilepsy with epileptic spasms, a type of diagnosis characterized by the detection of periodic discharges throughout the human brain. The doctors also found focal cortical dysplasia, that is, poorly developed gyrus of the brain, which provoked seizures.

In their search for salvation, Rachel's parents came across a famous American neurosurgeon, Luke Tomich. He said that surgery could relieve 80-90% of the girl's seizures. He also advised the Irish family to seek help from a team of Ukrainian specialists headed by Mykhailo Lovha, an experienced neurosurgeon at St. Nicholas Children's Hospital. 

Despite the war in Ukraine, the girl's parents decided to come to Lviv. They began preparing the little patient, and the team of Ukrainian neurosurgeons began to carefully plan the operation.

We chose an interesting one - combined access. We opened the cranial cavity in stages, found the altered area, separated it and disconnected it in stages. (...) We worked together with neurophysiologists, using state-of-the-art technologies - interventional monitoring and a "navigation system" that help us avoid damage to healthy areas of the brain

The operation lasted 7 hours. The intervention was successful and the desired result was achieved.

The seizures are completely gone and will no longer delay the child's development. Rachel has already returned home to Northern Ireland.

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