Experimental artificial lung saves baby

A baby boy is alive today thanks to a groundbreaking surgical setuppioneered in Winnipeg, doctors said Friday.

When Keith Porcher was born on Jan. 21, he had severe lung damage and critically low levels of oxygen in his body. Keith's heart had stopped and he had inhaled waste into his lungs, triggering pneumonia.

Staff at the Children's Hospital at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre performed an experimental respiratory procedure called ECMO, which is normally performed using a heart and lung bypass device.

Such devices for newborns are only available at four places in Canada, so doctors had to decide between flying the boy elsewhere, trying the experimental procedure or doing nothing.

"We felt the baby had no other option, that if this experimental procedure wasn't going to be tried, the baby was going to die," Dr. Cheryl Rockman Greenberg of the child health program told a news conference.

"As far as we know, it's the first time that it's been done in the world."

In the experimental setup, a dialysis machine was used to reroute Keith's blood through an artificial lung to deliver more oxygen to his body, saidDr. Abhay Divekar, a pediatric cardiologist at Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre.

The boy's parents,Jeff and Tanya Porcher,said they worried about how long the baby would be able to hang on, but they put their faith in the medical team.

The procedure started at midnight,the baby's father recalled.

"Then half an hour later, we got a call saying that he's come up a little bit," Jeff Porcher said."So of course you start to get excited, hope it comes up a little bit more, and then a little bit more, and then he's at home screaming at ya."

Divekar hopes to do more research on the experimental technique in hopes it may help other hospitals that cannot offer ECMOto newborns.