Book of consolations
Save the face.
Ariadne Roshchupkina needs expensive laser treatment.
Were it not for the fighting in Donbass, Ariadna Roshchupkina would have been born healthy. But shells exploding in the sky of her native Donetsk region caused stress to Olga Roshchupkina, who was still pregnant at the time, and her child was born with a dark red spot on her face. Doctors diagnosed a vascular malformation of the right side of the face, the so-called "wine stain". Now the girl is two years old, and she has already undergone three courses of laser therapy, which successfully removes such tumors. However, there are several more courses of therapy ahead. Ufond journalist Nina Filatova talks to Rostislav Valikhnovsky, a plastic surgeon and world-class specialist in general, emergency and reconstructive surgery, about the prospects of the girl’s treatment and rehabilitation.
- Rostislav, you are known as one of the best specialists in plastic surgery in Ukraine, and many children and adults with a problem like Ariadne have passed through your hands. Please tell, what are the prospects for the girl’s treatment, will laser therapy really help her? Is her disease curable?
- The "wine stain" of the disease is called in the vernacular, from the point of view of medicine it is a capillary hemangioma. As a rule, it is congenital, often has a genetic origin and can be manifested in the genus in several generations: if the hemangioma was in the grandmother, the mother, may appear in the child. 70% of such hemangiomas up to ten years go away on their own. Up to two years, they can be treated with beta-blockers such as anaprilin ( this is the treatment that has already passed, but without success, and Ariadne )but the effectiveness of such a course is not more than 60%. Other treatments for hemangiomas include laser therapy, or cryodestruction, or surgery. The most effective way, however, is surgery, which completely removes the tumor. And the risk of recurrence during surgical removal is the lowest. But laser therapy for 5-6 procedures successfully removes hemangiomas. It happens that the tumor disappears 100%, especially in children under 7 years. And sometimes 70% disappears and 30% remains. Ariadne is only two years old and I think she has good prospects.
- You said: there is a chance that by seven years the stain may disappear by itself. Maybe parents are worried in advance and rush to treatment?
- There are several approaches to solving the problem. Let’s call them American and European methods. The American School of Surgeons provides a radical approach to the removal of hemangiomas, they are removed as soon as possible, in early childhood. And this technique is worth trusting, because the American health care system is among the top ten in the world. I am personally in favor of creating a national program for early detection of hemangiomas at the level of neonatologists and early removal of hemangiomas on the basis of public and private pediatric surgery clinics.
However, there is a European methodology used by both public and private clinics in Ukraine. This technique offers active non-intervention or active observation. The child is under observation, checked every three months, and if the tumor begins to grow aggressively, only then it is removed. I think that the doctors who undertook Dr. Bogomolets in the dermatocosmetology clinic to help Ariadne are well done, and the child receives productive treatment from them.
- Tell me, Rostislav, is there really a connection between the stress that the mother experienced during pregnancy and her daughter’s illness?
- If no one in the family had hemangiomas, then there is such a connection, because any stress provokes mutations in genes. Of course, the condition of the child depends on the condition of the mother. This has been proven by science, and many scientific articles confirm it.
- How often do they turn to you for help with such problems?
- We have a large flow of people with such hemangiomas and we do 5-7 surgeries a month, and these are usually already very large tumors. They are already a threat, especially if located in the eyeball, larynx, respiratory tract, large vessels, such as the carotid artery. Such hemangiomas should be removed as soon as possible. In addition, tumors in the neck and face are also a cosmetic and aesthetic problem.
- Ariadne has a spot on her face, and this is a big psychological problem, because it is no secret that the children with whom the girl will communicate can react impulsively to her appearance. How to protect a child from excessive and sometimes negative attention?
- This problem needs to be solved only by treatment. Remove the hemangioma and forget about the disease as a nightmare. Therefore, I believe that the Americans are right with their method of early removal of such tumors. After all, then hemangiomas can actively grow and increase in size and get three-volume. And rehabilitation after such operations takes longer, and the operation itself is more expensive.
- Ariadne needs more than 30 thousand hryvnias for the next course of treatment. But the family can not afford such a sum. What to do?
- 30 thousand hryvnias is the minimum price. Treatment of large hemangiomas costs 280-300 thousand hryvnia. I operated on a girl who had a hemangioma weighing up to ten kilograms, she grew almost the second head. This is a very neglected case: unfortunately, the girl grew this hemangioma all her life, because in her early childhood she was not helped. In any case, treatment should not be delayed. The state does not fund programs for the treatment of such diseases, so both laser therapy and surgery are paid. But, for example, Okhmatdyt successfully operates on children. It is a national-level clinic that serves children from all over Ukraine, but of course they do not solve all the problems, so many patients choose other, including private clinics. In our clinic, we treat some patients for free, on a charitable basis.
- Rostislav, let me ask you a personal question: how does a surgeon feel when he returns a person’s real, but still new, face?
- Of course, I feel happy. Sometimes people come in six months, or even three, five years, and there is no trace of a previous defect on the face, the girls get married. Guys stop complexing because of appearance, career is established, that is, people become full members of society, fully rehabilitated and aesthetically, and emotionally, and intellectually, and socially. And for this reason it is worth working.
- What would you wish Ariadne’s family?
- Relax and do not be nervous, this is not a malignant tumor and there is nothing wrong with hemangiomas. The baby should not be exposed to direct sunlight for a long time, she should not sunbathe, especially in the place where there is a hemangioma. And you need to be careful and make sure there are no injuries. After all, when injured, hemangiomas can bleed. I would like to emphasize once again that this problem can be solved in Ukraine now, at any stage. We just need to not give in to despair, but focus on the solved problems. That’s all.
Help Ariadne - http://ufond.ua/167