Ho Chi Minh City: Fetal intervention specialists and pediatric cardiologists from Tu Du Hospital and Children’s Hospital achieved a medical milestone on May 28 by successfully conducting a complex in-utero heart intervention on a Singaporean woman’s 22-week-old fetus. The fetus was diagnosed with a severe congenital heart defect, a condition that required immediate and advanced medical care.

According to Vietnam News Agency, the patient was referred to the Ho Chi Minh City-based hospitals by KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital of Singapore, as this advanced procedure was not available in Singapore. This case represents the ninth fetal cardiac intervention performed in Ho Chi Minh City and was regarded as the most technically demanding to date. The challenges were heightened by the fetus’s extremely early gestational age, weighing just 600 grams, and the severity of the condition, known as aortic atresia, a rare and life-threatening defect.