About one in every 2000 babies born develop hydrocephalus and now a Calgary doctor is performing a procedure to create new channels for the cerebrospinal fluid to drain and circulate normally.
Hydrocephalus is a buildup of fluid in the brain and it can cause developmental problems and even death.
Treatment usually involves the insertion of a shunt but that is invasive and prone to infection so Dr. Jay Riva-Cambrin developed a shuntless procedure called endoscopic third ventriculostomy with choroid plexus cauterization.
During the procedure, a small opening is created by the surgeon in the skull and a tiny camera is then used to guide miniature tools to make a bypass for the blocked cerebrospinal fluid. The surgeon then cauterizes, thereby disabling, some of the tissue that creates the fluid.
At birth, Baya Plessis developed hydrocephalus after a brain infection.
Baya's parents met Dr. Riva-Cambrin, one of only two surgeons in Canada currently performing the procedure, to discuss her case.
Baya underwent over two hours of surgery and her parents are glad that she won’t have a permanent shunt.
“Dr. Riva-Cambrin is a hero to us,” says Baya’s dad Jamie. “He gave us our baby back.”
Dr. Riva-Cambrin has performed the surgery about 70 times in the United States and has completed seven surgeries in Calgary since he arrived last September.
“There's sort of great enthusiasm about this but it's so far bridled because we’re just waiting for more studies to come out. But if those studies, all the studies so far are panning out that it’s a very acceptable treatment then this is removing shunts out of a large percentage of infants with hydrocephalus who carry the burden of hydrocephalus,” he said.
The procedure can only be performed on children under the age of two who don't already have a shunt.
Dr. Riva-Cambrin is presently training a surgeon in Edmonton to perform the procedure on babies in northern Alberta.
