A 1-YEAR-OLD baby who couldn’t breathe normally because of a rare disease was recently cured by doctors at the Shenzhen Hospital of Southern Medical University, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

The baby, identified as Beibei, has had difficulty breathing and swallowing since birth. She was recently diagnosed with a condition called choanal atresia by Liu Dabo, a chief physician at the Shenzhen Hospital of Southern Medical University.

According to the report, choanal atresia is a congenital disorder in which the posterior of the patient’s nasal passage is blocked, usually by abnormal bone or cartilage. The occurrence rate of choanal atresia in infants is 0.0016 percent, with two-thirds of the patients being female. Currently, surgical operation is the only practical way to treat the disease.

In an effort to reduce the patient’s pain, Liu decided to perform a minimally invasive operation on Beibei to reshape her choana using plasma technology.

After a one-hour operation, Beibei regained a normal choana and was able to breathe without obstruction. Usually a patient with choanal atresia has to stay in an ICU for an extended period after undergoing such an operation, but Beibei recovered quickly due to the reduced-invasiveness of the operation and was discharged from the hospital only three days later.

The hospital is the first in China to use plasma technology to treat children patients. Over 8,000 plasma operations have been performed on children by doctors at the hospital, according to the report. (Zhang Yang)