Indian Doctors Perform Asia First Brain Bypass Surgery On Twin Children With Moya Moya Disease – There is no cure for Moya Moya disease. Revascularization surgery is often recommended to slow progression of the disease and reduce the risk of complications.
Twin girls diagnosed with Moya Moya disease, a relatively uncommon disease, got a news lease of life, thanks to doctors at Apollo Proton Cancer Centre, Chennai. For the first time in Asia, the Centre performed brain bypass surgery on the twin 8-year-old children from the Netherlands.
Moya Moya disease: Causes and symptoms
Moya Moya disease is a rare vascular (blood vessel) disorder in which the carotid artery in the skull is blocked or narrowed, leading to reduced blood flow to the brain.
What are the symptoms of Moya Moya disease? The girl’s parents got concerned when one of them developed vague persistent symptoms like jerky movements in the right hand and leg. After consulting with a senior neuro-physician, MRI scan of the girl’s brain was conducted and it showed that blood supply was significantly compromised on both sides of the brain, especially on the left. What the girl was experiencing was a form of multiple mini-strokes, often called limb-shaking epilepsy, resulting from compromised blood circulation to the brain. The other twin girl was also scanned and showed similar MRI findings. Both of them were diagnosed with Moya Moya disease, a relatively uncommon disease and even rarer in identical twins.
For the best possible surgical intervention, the children were referred to the Apollo Proton Cancer Centre, where a neuro-sciences team led by Dr. Roopesh Kumar, Senior Consultant, Neurosurgeon, performed the brain bypass surgery on them.
Treatment of Moya Moya disease
Unfortunately, there is no cure for Moya Moya disease. Early surgical intervention (revascularization surgery) can help slow progression of the disease and reduce the risk of complications.
Due to the lack of medicines to stop progression of the disease, the doctors at the Apollo Proton Cancer Centre also recommended surgical intervention via a brain bypass surgery.
In brain bypass surgery, the blood supply from the skin of the head is diverted into the brain through a window created on the skull bone. This facilitates uninterrupted blood flow to the brain without the risk of developing strokes. This procedure, STA-MCA bypass, was performed first on the symptomatic child. The surgery went on for nearly five hours. Next day, the other child underwent a similar procedure. Both procedures ended successfully, and the patients recovered quickly.
After three months, a thorough check-up was conducted to ensure that the twins were healthy, and the consecutive scans showed improved blood circulation on the left side of the brain, the doctors said.
Dr. Roopesh Kumar noted that timely decision to perform the complex surgery saved the patients’ lives. | Indian Doctors Perform Asia First Brain Bypass Surgery On Twin Children With Moya Moya Disease
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