At the Centre for Paediatric Medicine, surgeons successfully operated on a newborn boy, Zakhar, who had a rare congenital intestinal condition that could only be diagnosed during surgery.
The baby was admitted to the medical facility with persistent vomiting and failure to gain weight, which was consistent with the clinical picture of high-grade partial intestinal obstruction. Despite changing the feeding regimen and selecting different formulae, even small portions of food did not pass further along the gastrointestinal tract.
During the examination, doctors suspected an obstruction in the upper sections of the digestive system. However, neither ultrasound nor X-ray imaging provided a clear answer as to the cause of the problem, so the team of specialists decided to perform a diagnostic laparoscopy.
“During the operation, we found that the child’s duodenum was being compressed by dense embryonic adhesions. At the same time, we did not detect any other intestinal pathology. This is a very rare case. Without surgical intervention, it is virtually impossible to make such a diagnosis – neither ultrasound nor X-ray allows us to see this pathology,” says paediatric surgeon Oleh Sodoma.
Once they had identified the cause, the surgeons immediately eliminated it during the same operation. In the postoperative period, the vomiting stopped, the boy began to tolerate food well and to gain weight. At seven months of age, Zakhar already weighed 9.5 kg; he is now growing actively and developing in line with his age.
Doctors emphasise that persistent vomiting and failure to gain weight in a newborn require thorough investigation, as such symptoms may mask rare congenital conditions that cannot be detected during routine examinations.
The boy’s treatment was managed by a multidisciplinary team: paediatric surgeon and acting medical director of the Okhmatdyt Hospital of the Centre for Paediatric Medicine Oleh Sodoma; paediatric surgeon Tetyana Katrynets; head of the neonatal intensive care unit and paediatric anaesthetist Halyna Zaremba; paediatric anaesthetist Natalia Shershun; neonatologist Myroslava Kushnir; head of the Clinic for Early Childhood Diseases and Rehabilitation Roksolana Dub; as well as the team of the neonatal anaesthesiology and intensive care unit and specialists from the radiology and functional diagnostics department.