Philly surgeons successfully perform an operation that was never done before. The fatal tumor, which threatened the life of an unborn baby safely removed without interrupting its mother's pregnancy.
Katie Rice took an ultrasound of her 20-week old baby bump but she was shocked with the news that came along her baby's gender. After revealing that her baby was a boy, the lab technician brought in a bunch of doctors with bad news.
The ultrasound revealed that the baby had a huge lump in his heart that might not let him survive. The lump was threatening Katie's life too and she might have no choice but to terminate the pregnancy. CHOP fetal cardiologist Jack Rychik explained that baby Tucker's heart tumor was called a pericardial teratoma, a very rare disease which the doctor pegged to occur in one of every several hundred thousand unborn children.
Rychik stressed that in almost all of the cases, the mother is left with no choice but to terminate the pregnancy. The choice has been supported by doctors ever since. But baby Tucker was an exception.
This is backed up by a study published by the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, which reports that there are several other pericardial teratoma cases where surgery was not an option. But despite what researches and doctors had to say, Katie wanted to give her baby a chance. She believes that doing something is better than doing nothing. She hoped for the best.
With her firm desire to keep her baby, Katie agreed to undergo a very risky surgery. In the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, surgeons opened Katie's uterus, extracted the tumor that pressed her baby's heart and closed her up to allow her pregnancy to miraculously resume.
Philly reveals the happy ending of the story. Today, Katie's baby named Tucker Roussin is now three years old. Baby Tucker is now the very first baby who successfully survives a fetal heart tumor surgery.
