20.07.2023

AYALA Foundation, together with Gulnara Kaztaevna Nurlanova, Head of the Centre for Perinatology and Pediatric Cardiac Surgery and Valentina Zanilova, ultrasonographer, took part in the 20th World Congress on Fetal Medicine, which was held in Valencia, Spain.

The organizer of the congress was the Fetal Medicine Foundation, whose activities are aimed at improving the health of pregnant women and their children through research and training in the field of fetal medicine.

With the support of the international group of experts, the Foundation has developed an educational program for healthcare workers and parents, as well as a series of certificates of competence for various aspects of fetal medicine.

Over the past 20 years, the Fetal Medicine Foundation has supported research and training of doctors by allocation of the grants totaling more than £23 million in the following areas:

• early diagnosis of fetal abnormalities
• screening for chromosomal defects
• development of safer prenatal diagnostic methods
• intrauterine fetal surgery
• prediction and prevention of preeclampsia
• prediction and prevention of premature birth
• prediction and prevention of stillbirth
• prediction and treatment of fetal growth restriction
• problems of multiple pregnancy.

More than 2,000 doctors from 109 countries of the world took part in the congress; the participants heard 200 reports during the 5 days of the congress. Kazakhstan State Medical Centre took part in this event for the first time.

We were lucky to meet the director of the Research Centre for Fetal Medicine, Kypros Nikolaidis. Kypros is one of the world’s leading experts in the field of fetal surgery, he is the author of more than 1000 articles in scientific journals and more than 30 books and monographs on fetal surgery.

Fetal surgery enables doctors to correct various pathologies of fetal development in utero. The first fetal surgery was performed in the USA as late as in 1981. That time doctors were able to correct urethral obstruction in the fetus at 36 weeks of pregnancy.
The operation was successful and opened a new area in medicine.

Modern fetal surgery allows, using minimally invasive methods, to correct more than 20 different pathologies of the fetus during intrauterine development, avoiding death or severe disability of the child after birth. This is a new area for Kazakhstan and our Foundation will help in development of this area of prenatal medicine in our country as one of the most efficient tools for reducing childhood disability in our country.

Centre for Perinatology and Pediatric Cardiac Surgery in Almaty is interested in the development of fetal surgery. In 2023, groups of doctors, including with the support of our Foundation, are visiting advanced fetal medicine Centres abroad to study the best practices of this medical area.

Our Foundation is always in quest of advanced medical technologies to reduce disability from childhood. At the congress in Valencia we got familiarized with the innovative medical unit Fetoly-heart. This is a unit with artificial intelligence that connects to all current ultrasonography (USG) systems. During examination of the fetus in real time, this instrument conducts online analysis and, using artificial intelligence, helps to identify anomalies visible during ultrasound examination of the fetal heart and confirm the presence of all anatomical and qualitative landmarks, eliminating the risk of medical error. It also highlights the best USG images in real time and frees the ultrasonographer from manual photography and writing a report.

We do want such an instrument to be available to our ultrasonographers at the Fetal Care Centres. We will look for opportunities to test its work in Kazakhstan as soon as possible.