Critical new mother with rare, fatal condition saved
Doctors in Xinhua Hospital saved a critically-ill pregnant woman, who suffered from a rare and fatal condition with an incidence rate of one in one million but 90 percent mortality.
The 25-year-old woman, pregnant for 37 weeks, was found with an abnormal fetal heart beat during her prenatal check at a local hospital and doctors planned to conduct an emergency caesarean operation.
However, a pre-surgery check discovered that she also had an extremely low platelet count, only one tenth that of healthy people, and other symptoms like increased pressure and hemorrhagic spot in the skin.
Doctors suspected the woman suffered from HELLP syndrome, a pregnancy-related complication featured by hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelets. Doctors treated her immediately and conducted a surgery to deliver a boy.
However, the woman's indicators failed to turn better after treatment and she started developing fever.
Doctors of Xinhua Hospital check the patient in the intensive care unit.
Bearing in mind her special condition, she was transferred to Xinhua Hospital, a rescue center for critical pregnant women in Shanghai.
Experts from different departments in Xinhua carried out group diagnosis and discussions on the day of the patient's arrival and organized various checks and tests, confirming she suffered from thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, or TTP, a rare hematological disease with a one in one million incidence rate and 90 percent mortality.
The disease was triggered due to pregnancy, and called for immediate emergency treatment.
Doctors conducted three plasma exchange treatments by using 6,000 milliliters of plasma, which effectively means the exchange of almost all blood from the body, to control and cure her condition.
The woman was then discharged and now has got through the 42-day puerperium, a period following childbirth when the mother's uterus shrinks and the other functional and anatomic changes of pregnancy are resolved, Xinhua officials said on Wednesday.
Currently, both the woman and her baby boy are in stable condition. Her indicators have also returned to normal levels.
Plasma is repaired during the patient's exchange treatment.
Plasma exchange treatment is conducted for the patient.
