Study Shows Breakthrough in Brain Disease Treatment
Published: February 13, 2005
A study at the Mbale based CURE Children’s Hospital has shown widespread successful surgery for a childhood disease that can lead to mental retardation, blindness and often death if left untreated.
Children with Hydrocephalus also develop enlarged heads.
The findings on Hydrocephalus, more commonly referred to as water on the brain, appear in the January issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Since the 1960s Hydrocephalus has been most commonly treated by placing a tube (shunt) in the brain that runs underneath the skin and down into the abdomen, allowing the fluid to drain out of the brain.
It is the 50 percent failure of the shunt procedure that led the hospital’s Medical Director and Chief of Surgery, Dr Benjamin Warf, and colleagues to promote the Endoscopic Third Ventriculostomy (ETV) technique.
With ETV procedure, a tiny flexible scope is inserted inside the fluid cavities of the brain.
The scope also contains a camera that sends a picture to a video screen in the operating room.
According to Warf and colleagues, ETV makes a new opening for the blocked fluid to get out of the brain and escape into the pathways where it is normally absorbed.
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