The first procedure of its kind in Poland. A tumor larger than the heart was removed at 17 minutes of life.

• At the Polish Mother's Hospital in Łódź, doctors performed the first surgery in Poland to remove a heart tumor in a newborn in the first minutes of life.
• The girl was diagnosed with a teratoma, which grew several times larger during pregnancy and threatened the development of the lungs and the life of the baby.
• The operation was prepared by an interdisciplinary team, adapting the cardiac surgery room also for cesarean sections to shorten the time between delivery and the procedure.
• The tangerine-sized tumor was removed at 17 minutes into Ali's life, and today the two-month-old is growing and regaining her strength.

Specialists from the Polish Mother's Hospital (ICZMP) announced the successful surgery on Thursday. An interdisciplinary team of medics from the Polish Mother's Hospital (ICZMP) in Łódź performed the first such procedure in Poland . Newborn Ala, with a tumor larger than her heart, was on the operating table within the first few minutes of her life.

"The baby's mother was admitted to the Institute in Łódź in April 2025. An ultrasound examination revealed a 22 by 21 mm tumor in the pericardial sac, almost as large as the heart. Specialists diagnosed a teratoma, a cardiac tumor . It usually appears after the 30th week of pregnancy. At this stage of pregnancy, it would have been possible to terminate the pregnancy and schedule cardiac surgery. However, in Natalia's case, this was impossible, as she was only halfway through her pregnancy and the baby would not have survived," said Prof. Maria Respondek-Liberska, head of the Department of Prenatal Cardiology at the Polish Mother's Hospital in Łódź .

Doctors tried to maintain the pregnancy as long as possible, but because the fetus's condition was deteriorating, and in addition to the tumor in the chest (the tumor had increased 3-4 times its original size), fluid appeared, which blocked the development of the lungs, and an immediate cardiac surgery was necessary.

A team of specialists (cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, obstetricians, and neonatologists) was assembled at the Polish Mother's Hospital (ICZMP) to develop a surgical plan. The several-hundred-meter distance between the delivery suite and the cardiac surgery operating room at the ICZMP posed a challenge. A premature baby in immediate life-threatening condition might not survive the several minutes of transport.

"To shorten the time between delivery and heart surgery, a hybrid room in the cardiac surgery operating theater was adapted to perform cesarean sections and cardiac surgery in parallel. While one team was performing the cesarean section, cardiac surgeons were waiting for the baby to be born," said Adam Czerwiński, spokesman for the Polish Mother's Hospital (ICZMP).

"Every second counted, so the entire operation was planned to such an extent that even the positions of individual members of the surgical team were determined at this crucial moment of the procedure," added Prof. Edward Malec from the Institute's Cardiac Surgery Clinic.

"The mother was given general anesthesia, which is less typical than for a standard cesarean section, but we used this method so that we could quickly resuscitate the baby while the umbilical cord was still attached. I began intubating the baby immediately after his head was extracted from the uterus. (...) We expected, based on prenatal tests, that the baby would be in very poor condition," said Dr. Katarzyna Fortecka-Piestrzeniewicz .

Ala was resuscitated and placed on the operating table 11 minutes after birth. The hospital report noted that the tumor was removed just 17 minutes after the baby's birth, and the entire operation, from the moment the chest was opened to its completion, took 45 minutes.

"It was an encapsulated tumor the size of a tangerine. The tumor pedicle was attached to the aortic wall, very close to the origin of the right coronary artery. We had to be careful to precisely remove the tumor attachment without damaging the coronary artery. A false move would have meant the child's death," said Prof. Katarzyna Gilis-Januszewska, head of the Cardiac Surgery Clinic at the Polish Mother's Hospital Institute in Łódź .

Ala is two and a half months old; she is fed with her mother's milk and is gaining strength.

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