Leaders in Women's Health
Mission
We are committed to serve the health needs of the community. We are dedicated to taking a leadership role in an integrated health care system. We improve the quality of our clinical care by pursuing our teaching and research missions. We recognize that increasing value and continuously improving quality are essential to maintaining our excellence in patient care, research, and education.
In the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a top priority is the development of new medical procedures that will advance the practice of medicine and improve the health of our community. Members of the Department are constantly developing new medical procedures that transform the practice of both obstetrics and gynecology. Innovative procedures developed over the past few years include the intrauterine treatment of congenital anomalies and the use of high intensity focused ultrasound to treat uterine fibroids as well as advances in robotic surgery and minimally invasive surgical techniques.
Great medicine is about dedicated teams of physicians, nurses and staff working together to develop innovative treatments that save lives. In a stellar inter-disciplinary team effort, specialists from both Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Boston performed the world’s first successful in utero repair of a congenital heart valve disorder on "Baby Jack." At 20 weeks gestation, ultrasound testing revealed that Baby Jack had a severely narrowed aortic valve and that his left ventricle was not working. These signs indicated that Baby Jack would have hypoplastic left heart syndrome at birth and would die soon thereafter. Baby Jack’s parents consulted the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Fetal Therapy Program and Children’s Hospital Advanced Fetal Care Center. The two collaborating teams developed a plan to repair the heart valve defect while Baby Jack was still in his mother’s womb. Louise Wilkins-Haug, MD, PhD, the Director of the Division of Reproductive Genetics at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, inserted a needle through the mother’s abdominal wall and uterus and into the baby’s heart under ultrasound guidance provided by Dr Carol Benson. Children’s Hospital physicians then threaded a wire through the needle and used a small balloon to unblock the aortic valve. Baby Jack continues to do well and has not needed any additional surgery.
Uterine fibroids are the most common tumor of women. Approximately 30% of women will develop uterine fibroids. Uterine fibroids are usually treated surgically, either with a hysterectomy or myomectomy procedure. Recent discoveries make it likely that other treatment modalities will one day replace the surgical approach to the treatment of uterine fibroids. Dr Cynthia Morton, the William Lambert Richardson Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, discovered a gene that causes uterine fibroids. Collaboration between the Departments of ObGyn and Radiology has led to the development of a non-invasive technique for treatment of fibroids that involves destruction of the tumor using high intensity focused ultrasound treatment. In this novel procedure, the fibroid is localized by magnetic resonance imaging, and the tumor is destroyed by ultrasound energy directed to the center of the tumor. Magnetic resonance imaging ensures that adjacent organs are not damaged by the treatment.
Advances such as the in utero treatment of fetal heart disease and the non-invasive treatment of uterine fibroids can only be made at institutions dedicated to both the highest quality health care and to the expansion of the boundaries of medicine through research and teaching. Brigham and Women’s Hospital and its member physicians, nurses and staff are dedicated to working every day to advance the practice of medicine by discovering and deploying innovative treatments. Innovation is at the core of great medicine and the clinicians and scientists who lead this innovation are our greatest asset.
Robert L. Barbieri, Chairman
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