08 May 2009 Toronto doctors perform heart surgery on fetus

TORONTO — In what’s being called a Canadian first, Toronto doctors have successfully performed a heart procedure on a fetus inside the womb. A team of doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children and Mount Sinai Hospital expanded one of the baby’s heart valves using a balloon catheter. The device was inserted through the mother’s abdomen and then into the fetus to reverse heart failure before delivery. [Keep reading this article here.]