I thought you guys might enjoy reading this article. *tbt* 03/16/2009, Page T008* * Life could change with a scratch*
Experimental surgery might have put Adam Byrum back in control. * By John Barry* * [email protected]* Adam Byrum is a 10-year-old kid nicknamed “Wheels.” He jumps curbs, flies off ramps, drives a motorized dirt bike, and is the limbo champion at school. He also frankly calls himself an “experiment.” Thursday and Friday, Adam and a group of other children were literally rewired by surgeons at All Children’s Hospital. Nerves in their spinal cords were rerouted and reconnected in an attempt to rescue them from the invisible hells of bladder and bowel paralysis. The rewiring surgery is imported from China. It’s experimental, it’s expensive, it’s uninsured. It has been attempted on only a handful of American children with mixed results. Now it’s the heart of a three-year study at All Children’s that may eventually involve 100 children who suffer from spinal cord injuries or the birth defect spina bifida. Surgeons launched the project with eight operations, including Adam’s. Pediatric urologist Yves Homsy and neurosurgeons Gerald Tuite and LuisRodriguez traveled to China in November to learn the rewiring procedure. They brought its inventor here to offer advice during the first eight surgeries. “I’m sure there are skeptics among us,” Homsy told a gathering of doctors on Thursday night. “I’m not the least among them.” But he said it offers hope. Adam Byrum is also not the least among the skeptics. This rewiring was his 19th surgery since a tumor appeared on his spinal cord when he was 9 months old. He lost a kidney last year and needs dialysis three times a week, each dialysis requiring a two-hour round-trip from his home in Thonotosassa. He is on a kidney transplant list. He is a clear-eyed, hardened medical veteran, who doesn’t smile when he uses the word “experiment.” But he is also as daring as they come. Adam won that school limbo championship in a wheelchair. The rewiring is called the “Xiao procedure.” It was invented by ChuanGuo Xiao, a urologist who has performed the surgery on about 1,500 children and adults in China who are paralyzed by spinal cord injuries or suffer from spina bifida. The Xiao procedure is meant to bring relief to people with paralyzed bladders and bowels. It doesn’t just get a patient out of diapers. It alleviates the ravages of urinary infections and kidney failure. Many parents of children with spina bifida fear their kids are doomed to dialysis before they turn 20. The surgery sounds outrageous. It involves rewirin g the spinal cord so that sacral nerve roots leading to the bladder and bowels are spliced to a lumbar nerve root leading to the thigh. If it works, the results are weird, but phenomenal. The bladder and bowels are activated when the patient vigorously scratches a spot on his or her thigh. Xiao claims an 87 percent success rate. Thursday, Adam lay cloaked in blue fabric as lead neurosurgeon Sarah Gaskill operated. All that could be seen of Adam were his small bare feet and his open spinal cord. Xiao watched on a giant TV monitor. Adam is doing fine. When he arrived at All Children’s last week, he was wearing a “Just Do It” T-shirt. Now, the neurological healing and nerve regeneration will take at least eight months. Then Adam will find out if he can change his life just by scratching his thigh. ------------------------------ John Pendygraft/tbt* * Adam Byrum, 10, messes up his mother’s hair a few minutes before being taken into experimental surgery Thursday at All Children’s Hospital. * Powered by TECNAVIA*© 2009. All Rights Reserved. Times Publishing Company. See Our Privacy Policy. 03/16/2009 * ------------------------------ ------------------------------ -- Quadius C2-3 incomplete 13 years post injury
