A 12-year-old Romanian boy underwent brain surgery in Iași, in semi-darkness, for a giant 10-centimeter tumor. This is the first time in Romania that an innovative substance has been used.
The medical team, led by Dr. Lucian Eva, the manager of the Emergency Clinical Hospital in Iași, performed a revolutionary operation.
The boy, Marian, underwent a complex surgery lasting approximately five hours, during which neurosurgeons managed to remove a ten-centimeter tumor.
For the first time in Romania, the innovative substance - 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) - was used on a child, allowing the identification and protection of healthy brain tissue. This substance played an essential role in the success of the intervention and in saving Marian's life.
Marian, a child full of dreams and hopes, now aspires to become a great football player. His deeply grateful mother states that her son has been born again.
"The child came to our Emergency Department diagnosed with a very large brain tumor, which posed real challenges in terms of diagnosis. Ultimately, after performing high-performance explorations in the hospital, specifically Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, we decided to perform a maximal resection of the lesion, using a contrast substance, 5-aminolevulinic acid.
In a national premiere, we used this substance for the first time on children. The use of the substance in children was a relative contraindication in this regard, but there have been studies for several years showing the effectiveness of using the substance, according to certain criteria, regarding the resection of this type of tumors in young patients," stated Dr. Lucian Eva.
"From our point of view, the operation was a success. We managed to maximally remove the tumor. The child's condition is good.
We will subsequently see the result of the anatomopathological examination and the complementary treatment that the child will undergo. The fact that we used this substance helped us a lot in performing a maximal and correct resection of the lesion, without this child experiencing postoperative deficits," the doctor added.