EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 8 February 2022 — A Cuban medical team successfully removed a chest tumor that complicated the vital functions of a 49-day-old baby, official media reported Monday.
The intervention that saved the life of Annalie, who suffered a cardiac arrest due to the teratoma, was a “milestone for Cuban medicine,” according to the official digital media Cubadebate.
The problem was discovered when the patient arrived at the José Luis Miranda children’s hospital in Villa Clara due to possible covid-19 infection and respiratory problems were discovered.
Various tests, from X-rays to an echocardiogram and an ultrasound, showed that the baby had a teratoma that “compressed vital structures such as the heart, the respiratory tract and the large blood vessels located in the center of the chest.”
It was “a benign tumor that, due to the compression of vital organs, behaved like a malignant one,” summarized the neonatal surgeon and head of that service central Cuba, Abel Armenteros.
The local medical team was reinforced with two experts from Havana – since transferring the patient was too risky – and the baby underwent emergency surgery.
The operation, which lasted an hour and a half, was completed successfully and the postoperative complex, with antibiotics and “extreme care” in the intensive care unit, is evolving favorably.
According to the official Granma newspaper, the director of the children’s hospital, Jesús Sánchez Pérez, assured that the progress of the baby, fifteen days after the intervention, is “very positive.”
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