Treatment for severe acid reflux in children
Severe acid reflux is quite common among children and an operation on 13-year-old James White to alleviate the backflow of acid from his stomach into his esophagus was viewed by Doctors from 36 countries last week.
The operation was filmed from an operating room at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver and transmitted via the Internet to doctors’ computers around the world.
The procedure was the first non invasive pediatric procedure to be webcast.
Dr. Steve Rothenberg, chief of pediatric surgery at the Mother and Child Hospital has performed about 1,500 of the surgeries and was eager to spread information on the technique to colleagues around the world.
If babies have it, it causes problems with the lungs, keeping them from eating and growing well.
St. Luke’s treats it aggressively to get the children out of the hospital, preserve lung function, alleviate asthma and avoid eating disorders.
The new laproscopic procedure requires just a small incision in the navel for the camera and four other quarter-inch incisions up the thorax for the instruments, which is a major breakthrough from the previous procedure which involved a big open incision, 5 inches wide.
The old operation was very painful, with a high incidence of lung infection but now, patients are up and about after 2 days.
