Doctor's 'chewing gum' cure to save children across world

Mr Jo Bhattacharya, a surgeon at Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Sick Children, was on holiday with his family in Cornwall when he received a phone call asking him to return to Scotland to operate on a 16-day-old child who had been diagnosed with a rare brain condition called the Vein of Galen malformation.

One of only two specialists in the UK who can treat the illness, which causes a vein in a child's head to swell to the size of an egg and is fatal if left untreated, Mr Bhattacharya, above right, immediately got on a plane home to carry out the first of a series of eight operations on baby Pierce Drennan.

But Pierce's form of the condition was so complex that Mr Bhattacharya decided to use a different method, using a new type of balloon catheter that had previously only been used in adults with aneurisms. Now he is to share his discovery with other specialists across the world.

"When I got the call, both I and the other British specialist were on holiday, but he was in New Zealand," said Mr Bhattacharya. "Previously I'd taken an urgent flight back from a meeting in Greece for another baby, but now, seeing Pierce toddling around the room, I just can't tell you how happy I feel.

"This breakthrough was a real team effort and will help with other difficult cases. There is quite an international collaboration for this disease - I will be speaking to my colleagues in Toronto and Paris and elsewhere about this technique."

Some babies with the condition are not diagnosed in time to be treated, but Mr Bhattacharya said there was an excellent success rate for children who do undergo operations.

Pierce's form of the condition required the sealing of so many fine blood vessels that Mr Bhattacharya was unable to use conventional methods. He passed the balloon through the child's jugular vein to the brain, then injected a solidifying liquid, which he said was "like chewing gum", to finally seal the blood vessels. It is expected Pierce will now live a normal healthy life.

The family brought Pierce from their home in Rugby in Warwickshire to Glasgow to undergo the operation.

His father, Padraig Drennan, said: "Dr Bhattacharya is a miracle worker - we can't thank him enough for saving our son.

"He was very clear about the risks involved because we knew it was a new procedure, but we had run out of options. From the moment we met him we had great confidence in him."

Everyone has a Vein of Galen in their brain.It is not known what causes the malformation, when blood vessels to the brain short-circuit and instead go through the vein directly to the heart, which has to pump faster to get enough blood to the brain, often resulting in heart failure. Before the development of minimally invasive neurosurgery in the 1980s, most babies with the condition did not survive.