Four weeks before his birth, doctors decided to insert a balloon catheter - a type of soft catheter with an inflatable balloon - into his millimeter-wide trachea to enable the lungs to expand using a fetoscope. The mother went into preterm labor at seven months, and doctors removed the balloon catheter promptly so that the baby would not suffocate. When the baby was five days old, doctors repaired the hole in his diaphragm. It has performed over 600 fetal surgeries since 2010, with around 60 surgeries performed on local expectant mothers per year. The team is also the first to introduce various fetoscopic surgeries in Hong Kong, such as fetoscopic laser photocoagulation for treating twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome in 2002.

Source: The Standard September 20, 2020 19:07 UTC