Unique endoscopic operations performed at Research and Practical Centre for Paediatric Surgery in Minsk

Since the establishment of the diagnostic department on the basis of the Republican Research and Practical Centre for Paediatric Surgery, paediatric endoscopy has received a powerful impetus for development. Today, almost all modern high-tech techniques have been mastered here, and over 6,000 diagnostic tests are performed annually.

Congenital duodenal atresia – one of the most common pathologies in infants – accounts for up to 50 percent of all intestinal atresia. Simply put, there is no lumen in the tissues for the normal functioning of the organ. The frequency of cases is 1 per 10 thousand newborns. In 1996, Japanese doctors were the first in the world to treat such a defect with the help of endoscopy, i.e., without an incision, inside the intestine.

“It should be taken into account that such manipulations are carried out with a baby whose weight is about 3kg,” endoscopist Kirill Marakhovsky, who heads the Diagnostic Department of the Republican Research and Practical Centre for Paediatric Surgery, explained. “Today, about 80 such operations have already been performed in the world, 25 of which in our country since 2021, when we proposed this new technique. It gives clinical results comparable to classical (i.e., abdominal) surgery, but at the same time the newborn child gets the opportunity to start oral nutrition earlier, stay less in the intensive care unit and, in general, in the hospital. The economic efficiency of the series of eight patients exceeded Br150,000.”