Treating cerebral palsy has always been a worldwide problem, and even in Germany, where medical technology is developed, medical experts are helpless against this disease.
However, a German mother refused to give up, and after stumbling upon a paper on the treatment of cerebral palsy from China, she came to China with a glimmer of hope and traveled thousands of miles with her son.
After the treatment, she not only obtained satisfactory results, but also witnessed the great achievements of the Chinese medical community in the field of cerebral palsy treatment.
German mothers worry about their son with cerebral palsy
Until November 2019, German mother Sandra had been having headaches for her son Felix.
Because at birth, Felex was stunted in the mother's womb, the umbilical cord was found wrapped around the neck during delivery, resulting in a lack of oxygen in the brain.
Shortly after birth, Felex was found to be unable to perform normal movements in his left hand, with mild, elbow flexion, and adduction deformities in his left arm. Doctors determined that Felix had cerebral palsy based on symptoms.
As he grew older, Not only did Felix not have the liveliness of other children, but everything in his life needed the care of his mother, Sandra.
Saddened by her son's treatment, Sandra traveled to Germany to seek medical advice, hoping to cure her son's cerebral palsy.
However, cerebral palsy is an extremely difficult disease to cure all over the world, so although German doctors have adopted botulinum toxin treatment and conservative rehabilitation treatment, Felix's condition has not improved significantly.
Many people have advised Sandra to be prepared for The Life of Felix with cerebral palsy, but Sandra, who is a journalist, has a spirit of never giving up.
In order to cure her son, she began to understand the situation of cerebral palsy and pay attention to information in the field of brain medicine.
In the beginning, Sandra mainly focused on the study of cerebral palsy in European and American countries, because she believed that the Western medical community represented the highest level of medicine.
In normal times, Sandra also sent Felix's case to European and American brain experts, but after a few years, the Western medical community is still helpless against cerebral palsy.
Just when Sandra was discouraged, she happened to see a paper on the treatment of cerebral palsy in a medical academic journal, the paper named "Neural Cross-Displacement Technique Brings Paralyzed Hands Back to Life", which is about the "left and right cervical seven-nerve cross-shifting" and specific treatment cases of Chinese medical scientist Professor Xu Wendong for the treatment of cerebral palsy.
The paper piqued Sandra's interest, and as soon as Sandra read the paper, she began looking for news reports about the treatment.
Through the official website of the International Society of Surgical Surgery in Berlin, she saw the case of Professor Xu Wendong and Shanghai Huadong Hospital in the treatment of cerebral palsy. When she finished reading the reports, she felt hope.
In order to confirm the authenticity of the case, she specifically went to the medical paper database to find Professor Xu Wendong's information, as well as Professor Xu Wendong's papers, and even Professor Xu Wendong's Chinese papers, she carefully translated every sentence with a translator.
After learning more about Professor Xu Wendong and Huashan Hospital's treatment of cerebral palsy, Sandra immediately sent an email to Professor Xu Wendong and began to prepare for the trip to China.
Why is Sandra so confident in Professor Xu Wendong? It all starts with Shanghai Huashan Hospital.
The legend of "Huashan Handwai"
As the affiliated hospital of Fudan University, Huashan Hospital can be said to be one of the earliest hospitals in China to perform surgery.
In the early 1990s, after years of treatment and meticulous research, Gu Yudong, a doctor at Huashan Hospital, found that of the five large nerves in the human brachial plexus, the seven cervical nerves in the middle seemed to have little effect.
On this basis, Gu Yudong made a bold hypothesis: "Take a section of the root neck seven nerves from a good arm, and then put it in the damaged arm, which should restore the damaged arm." ”
Gu Yudong's idea was quickly surgically verified in 1986, and after many verifications, all of them obtained positive results.
In 1992, after Gu Yudong published his results in medical journals, it shocked the entire medical community and quickly became a hot topic in the medical community.
After the success of this idea of "transferring flowers and elderly trees", Gu Yudong also found that the damaged hand did not recover immediately after the operation, and it took three to five years to complete the exercise.
What is even more surprising is that after the patient recovers, as long as he touches one of his hands, both hands will have a feeling, which makes Gu Yudong and his student Xu Wendong feel interested and conduct in-depth research on the principle behind it.
In 2001, Xu Wendong, a postdoctoral fellow, began his own research project - the relationship between peripheral nerve displacement and brain function.
This is a completely new field of medicine, and this study breaks the assertion of previous medical textbooks that the peripheral nerve and the central nervous system are two sets of unrelated "neural pathways."
After hesitating, he took the risk and began the operation
In seven years of research, Xu Wendong summed up a set of theories of "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-displacement", and soon ushered in the opportunity to apply.
In 2008, Xu Wendong hosted a 4-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. The girl is in a similar situation to Felex, who cannot grasp her left hand and needs adults to do so in daily life.
After the examination, Xu Wendong thought that the girl could be subjected to "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-displacement".
However, before the operation, Xu Wendong fell into hesitation. Although the concept of "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-displacement" is very new, there is no precedent for practical operation, and the operation itself is both complex and easy to touch sensitive nerves, and it is easy to have accidents.
Xu Wendong was 38 years old at the time, which was the most youthful and powerful time for a surgeon. And Xu Wendong can be said to have a promising future, at the age of 29, he dared to remove the phrenic nerve on the heart he jumped into.
For him personally, whether he does or does not do this operation, it will not affect his future. But if there is an accident at this time, it will have a great impact on his future.
Looking at the girl's father's sad and haggard appearance, Xu Wendong's sense of responsibility as a doctor made him want to cure the girl.
Just when Xu Wendong hesitated, the teacher Gu Yudong stood up, he helped Xu Wendong pass the ethical review of the operation, and then encouraged Xu Wendong to stick to his ideas, because the progress of medicine requires bold progress.
After the girl's father knew the situation, he came to the office and said firmly to Xu Wendong: "Doctor, we do this operation!" ”
In this way, the first "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-translocation" in the history of the world began.
Surprisingly, the operation went smoothly and the girl with cerebral palsy quickly became a normal person. When the girl returned to the next year for a follow-up consultation, her hand, which could not be opened, could easily grasp the chocolate handed by others, which meant that the girl had been able to integrate into society normally.
After the success of the operation, it quickly attracted international attention
Shortly after treating a 4-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, Xu Wendong took the lead in treating a 12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy.
After treatment, the girl recovered quickly, not only returning to normal life, but also going to school, and later successfully entering university and civil service.
After the news spread that the two girls with cerebral palsy had been cured, many patients with similar symptoms came to Huashan Hospital. In the 10 years from 2008 to 2018, more than a dozen patients were treated and returned to normal life.
The youngest of these patients is less than 10 years old and the oldest is more than 80 years old.
It can be said that Huashan Hospital has mastered the "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-displacement" technology, and the work of Professor Xu Wendong and his team has also received great attention from the international medical community.
Experts from the international authoritative journal "Neuroscience" have repeatedly written articles praising Professor Xu Wendong and saying: "The most important work provides a very promising solution for nerve damage and repair." ”
In 2018, the New England Journal of Medicine, known for its rigor, highly praised Xu Wendong's left and right cervical seven-shifting technique.
Xu Wendong's paper was also selected as the "Most Watched Paper of 2018" in 2019.
It is precisely because there are authoritative medical experts who recognize and respect Xu Wendong and the "left and right cervical seven nerve translocation", so Sandra is so happy.
Before traveling to China, Sandra simply communicated with Professor Xu Wendong via email. Because of the complexity of medical terms, in order to express accuracy, Sandra also found local Chinese and communicated with Sandra through Chinese.
Little Felix was given a new lease of life
After communication, Xu Wendong confirmed Felix's condition and decided to treat him.
Sandra, who received the news, was extremely excited, and she quickly took Felix and her prepared luggage and boarded a plane to China.
After arriving in Shanghai, Sandra and Felex quickly took a car to Huashan Hospital. After the meeting, Xu Wendong saw Felix with his left arm tightened and snuggled in his mother's arms.
What made Professor Xu Wendong uncomfortable was that Sandra came up and talked about Felix's medical history and related symptoms in medical terms, but seeing that Sandra was so serious, Xu Wendong and other doctors were touched, and they felt that there was the power of maternal love.
After various examinations, Xu Wendong believed that Philex's condition could be operated on.
Soon after, Xu Wendong decided to be the main surgeon himself, and associate professors Li Tie and Shen Yundong were the first and second assistants, respectively, preparing to start The Phyllix surgery.
On the day of the operation, under the care of Xu Wendong and other members of the department, Felex's healthy side cervical seven nerves were displaced to the left side through a special passage in the neck.
Because this nerve is thinner than a hair, it can only be formed under the microscope, but after the operation of "the artist is bold", the whole operation took only three hours, and the amount of bleeding from the operation was only 25ml, and Xu Wendong successfully completed the operation again.
The day after the operation, Felix was able to walk on the ground and felt a noticeable force in his left upper limb.
In the fourth set after the operation, Sandra was pleasantly surprised to find that Felix's left hand could be straightened in and his fingers and wrists were also open a little.
A month after the operation, Felix's left hand was able to pick up a spoon and tie his shoelaces, and while these movements still looked clumsy, it was a huge improvement over the previous symptoms.
Sandra was very surprised by the effect of her son's treatment, and she happily told the media that although she had read many cases of Professor Xu's treatment, when this reality happened to her, everything was so unbelievable.
Today's Felix, has been no different from the average child, life has been able to achieve self-care, watching her son freely wave his hands to run, Sandra often said with gratitude that he will never forget Professor Xu Wendong, he will continue to promote Professor Xu Wendong's "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-displacement" in Germany, for the benefit of more patients with cerebral palsy.
Boundless Love He strives to make this technology more people benefit
Today, Professor Xu Wendong is still fighting on the medical front. The "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-displacement" brought him great honors, but he felt that he had not done enough.
The love of doctors is boundless, and Professor Xu Wendong did not regard his technology as a senior for fame and fortune, but worked hard to promote his medical achievements.
In order to treat more patients, after 2019, he often taught in person, and trained a group of medical personnel who mastered the "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-displacement" for Xinhua Hospital and Renji Hospital.
Internationally, Xu Wendong also actively made the results public, and now the "left and right cervical seven nerve cross-displacement" has been promoted in the United States, Britain, Japan, India and other twenty countries.
Resources:
The affiliated Huashan Hospital allows German boy to paralyze his arm to usher in a new life Fudan University News Network
Huashan Hospital's original surgical technology has attracted worldwide attention, and overseas patients have come to Tencent News
"Huashan Hand Outside": 60 years of geng continue to move forward, explore more possibilities of the brain Surging news