Tri-Service General Hospital (TSGH) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of diaphragm pacing system (DPS) implantation in a woman with a high cervical spinal cord injury, saying that the procedure helped the woman come off ventilator support and begin rehabilitation.
The patient is a 37-year-old Filipino pediatric nurse named Wendy working at a hospital in the UK, and when she was 22 weeks pregnant in March 2024, she experienced a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a congenital condition, and she developed severe complications after receiving brain surgery, TSGH said.
After the surgery, she developed acquired central hypoventilation syndrome, a condition where the brain loses its ability to regulate breathing automatically, so although she gave birth to her daughter while in a coma, she remained dependent on a ventilator and oxygen support, it said.
Photo: CNA
Wendy could only begin rehabilitation after removing ventilator support, so her husband, Mark, searched tirelessly for a solution, TSGH Department of Surgery director Huang Tsai-wang (黃才旺) said.
Upon learning that Wendy could undergo DPS implantation in Taiwan, Mark consulted with several doctors and traveled with her to the nation, Huang said.
Diaphragmatic muscle contraction contributes to more than 40 percent of a human’s total respiratory effort, so if a person’s spinal cord or phrenic nerve is damaged, their diaphragm would be unable to contract normally or receive breathing signals, so they would need to rely on a ventilator, he said.
DPS works by surgically implanting electrodes that apply electrical impulses to stimulate the diaphragm to contract, and following a successful surgery, patients’ dependence on a ventilator would be reduced or end, significantly improving their quality of life, he said.
Although DPS has been widely used in European countries and the US for many years, as well as in some Asian countries, TSGH is the only hospital in Taiwan with experience and expertise in implanting it, he said.
TSGH’s International Medical Service Center head Fang Wen-hui (方文輝) convened preoperative online consultations and evaluation meetings with several departments for Wendy’s procedure, before performing a three-hour surgery on March 4, TSGH said.
Wendy was transferred from the intensive care unit to the Respiratory Care Center on March 11, and she on Thursday last week could breathe without ventilator and began rehabilitation, it said, adding that the woman plans to return home by the end of the month.
DPS implantation is a “major breakthrough” in the field of respiratory reconstruction, Huang said.
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