A quick-thinking and enterprising doctor was able to save the life of a 20-day-old baby girl with a deadly aneurysm with the help of a commonly known household substance: superglue.
Ashlyn Julian was born May 16. The girl began crying and screaming and spitting up constantly, and mother Gina Julian rushed her to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Kan., the Daily Mail reported.
Doctors found an almond-sized aneurysm in her brain — a very rare diagnosis for infants. And they were stumped on the treatment. There were no tools designed to remove it or treat the aneurysm in patients so small.
So Dr. Koji Ebersole, an endovascular neurosurgeon, took a chance: He decided to close the aneurysm with surgical superglue. He took a tiny, hair-thin catheter and entered through the baby’s neck to deposit the glue on the area of treatment on the brain, the Daily Mail said.
And then the waiting game began — with positive results.
Within 24 hours, the baby was doing well, doctors said in the Daily Mail.
“I did not know that she’d be ready that fast,” Dr. Ebersole said in the report.
The parents are expected to take their daughter home in the next week or so.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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