CLEVELAND – The Cleveland Clinic is the second hospital to successfully remove a tumor from a baby’s heart in the mother’s womb.
“I have people tell me that she is definitely a miracle that she is a gift from God. And she is in this world to do something crazy,” said Samantha Drinnan.
Ryland Drinen is now healthy and 5 months old. But during the 6 months in the mother’s womb, the situation was not in her favor.
“In April, we learned that Ryland had a cardiac teratoma, a tumor growing on his heart,” Samantha said.
His condition is such that doctors often do not see him.
“They’re incredibly rare. Overall, they’re only like one in 40,000 births and then it’s less common to have it in this heart location,” said Darrell Cass, MD, of the Center for Fetal Surgery and Fetal Care at the Cleveland Clinic .
Successful removal of that tumor is even rarer – this procedure has been performed only a few times around the world and has been successful only once.
“The odds were absolutely against us and we were confident we had assembled the right team,” Cass said.
After discussing and weighing the options. The doctor and Samantha agreed that surgery was the way. On May 7, fetal surgery was performed, which took about four hours.
“The doctor did what he could on the baby after birth. They made a cut in the middle of the chest to open the rib cage to expose the heart of this young child, to help drain the tumor from the heart,” Cass said.
The surgery was successful for the second time in history.
“Some of the nurses who were in my room told me that they cried and they are still crying over it. Simply because it was the craziest thing they have ever experienced,” Samantha said.
After removal, Ryland was placed back in her mother’s womb, growing for 10 weeks before deciding to come out early.
“In 36 weeks and three days he entered the world,” said Samantha.
A world that he has already affected, and soon she will tell him this heroic story.
“One day he’s going to ask ‘What’s this crazy place on my chest?’ And I’m going to tell her, ‘You’ve got something crazy that no kid can really say they’ve passed,'” Samantha said.
Ryland is fine but Samantha says they still go back for blood work and to make sure her heart is working properly.
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