UCSF Fetal Treatment Center

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The Fetal Treatment Center at the University of California, San Francisco is a multidisciplinary care center dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, and long-term follow-up of fetal birth defects. It combines the talents of specialists in pediatric surgery, genetics, obstetrics/perinatology, radiology, nursing, and neonatal medicine.

[edit] History

In 1980, Dr. Michael R. Harrison and his research colleagues at UCSF developed the techniques for open fetal surgery using animal models. Then in 1981, Dr. Harrison conducted the first open fetal surgery on a fetus to correct a dangerously advanced urinary tract obstruction.

Under the direction of Dr. Harrison, the newly created Fetal Treatment Center continued to develop and further refine fetal intervention techniques to treat a range of birth defects. It has also striven to develop less invasive means of treatment such as fetendo and fetal image-guided surgery.