During a routine ultrasound, doctors determined that Carla Datorre-Pearson’s unborn son suffered from a lower urinary tract obstruction (LUTO). The rare condition, which affects 1 in 3,000 babies in utero, prevents a fetus from eliminating urine from its body while developing in the womb.
Datorre-Pearson was referred to Rubén A. Quintero, M.D., director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Fetal Therapy Center at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.Dr. Quintero and his team recently invented a thimble-sized shunt that uses a double disc mechanism to treat LUTO. Unlike shunts in the past, Dr. Quintero’s invention cannot become dislodged, therefore eliminating the need to repeat the procedure.
“In the past 30 years, this is a major breakthrough in the field,” Dr. Quintero said. “Although we have been using shunts to treat this condition since the 1980’s, the high failure rate of the previous shunts did not solve the problem.”
Without treatment, 90 percent of those babies affected by LUTO would die. The problems are caused because the baby cannot empty the bladder, which becomes very large and inflated. Also, because amniotic fluid is mostly composed of the baby’s urine beyond the middle of the second trimester, the bag of waters dries up. Those who survive often require critical care including treatment for renal failure and lack of lung development. The condition leads to approximately 700 fetal deaths per year nationwide.
Dr. Quintero, a worldwide leader in fetal therapy, performed the procedure using the new shunt on Datorre-Pearson in September at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Her son, Andre Pearson, was born in January.
“If it wasn’t for this surgery, my son would not have survived,” Datorre-Pearson said.
Few hospitals in the country offer fetal therapy services. Dr. Quintero is world renowned in this field, a subspecialty in existence since 1980.
Dr. Quintero is best known for developing a minimally invasive approach for the correction of birth defects in utero, also known as operative fetoscopy. He has also developed the selective laser technique to treat twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), a condition resulting from the unbalanced flow of blood between two fetuses sharing a common placenta. The condition affects up to 10 percent of identical twins in utero and without surgical intervention both babies could die.