Three-year-old girl with severe pathology
It was one of the parents’ many attempts to finally find out a diagnosis for their little daughter that might even lead to a saving therapy. Little Emily suffers from severe spasticity in all four extremities. She cannot walk or sit. When paediatrician Dr. Christian Reibold saw the girl in front of him, he knew that after three long years, the true cause of her suffering finally had to be found. Together with Dr. Martina John, he organized an MRI scan of the head and neck area. Our MRIs and CTs are analyzed by radiologists in the USA and Europe on a voluntary basis. That same day, radiologist Dr. Mike Hartung called from the USA. “The spinal canal is extremely compressed in the area of the first cervical vertebra. The patient should be seen by a neurosurgeon immediately.
Our neurosurgeon Andreas Warkentin will not arrive in Peru until the second half of the year. As things stand, he would be the only representative of his profession in our state of Apurimac. In the meantime, we have transferred the girl to Cusco and we hope that a neurosurgeon at the government hospital will perform the necessary operation quickly.
During birth, the child was delivered face up, which must have resulted in a partial dislocation of the head on the cervical spine. Thanks to our MRI scanner, parents and doctors now know which problem needs to be treated urgently. /KDJ
