A five-year-old Emirati boy with epilepsy has been given a new lease of life after robot-assisted surgery in the US helped put an end to his seizures.
Hassan Al Qahtani and his parents, Abdulla and Asma, are now looking to the future with renewed hope after enduring a harrowing ordeal in the early weeks of his life, when Hassan was rushed to intensive care and suffered seizures in his sleep that left him struggling to breathe.
At just five months old, he was diagnosed with epilepsy. From that moment, his life changed. He had to take medication every day. Hospital visits replaced playground trips. And yet, despite all that, the seizures never stopped.
The family, who live in Sharjah, refused to give up. They visited specialists and chased hope across hospitals and cities. Finally, a ray of light appeared during a visit to Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi.
Doctors spoke of a potential cure: a complex brain surgery. But it would not happen in the UAE. The answer lay thousands of kilometres away, at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC.
Without a second thought, Hassan’s parents packed up their lives and flew to the US last August. For eight long months, they watched and waited as Hassan went through tests and MRIs.
Life-changing surgery
In March, he underwent a delicate brain surgery that would alter the course of his life. For the first time, Hassan went days, then weeks, without a single seizure.
For his family, this did not simply mean his recovery. It was a rebirth.
"Hassan’s mood has changed since the surgery. He is now calmer and happier," Ms Al Qahtani said. “Earlier, his medications were so strong, it affected his diet and mood. He was unhappy and didn’t feel hungry."
Hassan will be weaned off the medication over the next two years. His family expressed their thanks to hospitals in the US and UAE for their support and the Emirati government, who funded the treatment.
“We are grateful to this hospital, also to Seha [Abu Dhabi Health Services Company] and Dr Majid Aziz at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City for referring us to this hospital,” Ms Al Qahtani said. "We also thank the UAE government for supporting us throughout the travel and treatment."
The family now has hope at the end of a long road. Identifying the exact origin of Hassan’s seizures was a challenge, requiring the best medical minds and the latest technology.
“We had to do a procedure called a robot-assisted stereo EEG procedure," explained Dr Chima Oluigbo, a paediatric neurosurgeon at the Children’s National Hospital who handled Hassan’s operation. "It is an interesting procedure where we use a robot called Rosa [robotic stereotactic assistance]. We've been doing these procedures since 2016 and we're one of the first centres that acquired this robot."
The Rosa unit helps with the precise placement of electrodes into areas of the brain where seizures are suspected of coming from. It is like a GPS device for the brain.
The robot does not touch the patient or place the electrodes itself – it simply helps the surgeon to find the exact place in the brain to operate on. “We were able to prove that Hassan’s seizures were coming from somewhere at the back of the brain. It's called the occipital lobe and his seizures would start from there and spread to the rest of his brain,” Dr Oluigbo added.
“The surgery took about three hours. We made an incision, went to the area that was abnormal, and resected the area of abnormality."
Hassan made a great recovery from the operation and was discharged from the hospital after three days.
“Think about the fact that there's a little kid who could have lived with seizures and medications for the rest of his life,” Dr Oluigbo said. "So, this whole thing is life-changing. We have been able to cure his seizures. He's going to live the rest of his life not worrying about it."
Research and innovation at Children’s National Hospital
The UAE has long supported the hospital in Washington, contributing $150 million to establish the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, and a investing $30 million towards its academic arm, the Children’s Research Institute.
The Sheikh Zayed Institute works on cutting-edge research and innovation focused on children and is involved in robotic neurosurgical research. While the Rosa unit was not made by the institute, it is working on an MRI-compatible robot.
“The Rosa robot cannot be used within an MRI environment. As you know, the MRI is like a big magnet, and you cannot put anything metallic in it,” Dr Oluigbo said. “But Sheikh Zayed Institute is trying to take this a step further by actually designing a robot that you can use fully in the MRI scan, so you can see exactly what's being done."
When President Sheikh Mohamed visited Washington last September, he met Emirati children receiving treatment at the hospital. Hassan was among them.
“We were so happy. It was an unforgettable experience to see our leader,” Mr Al Qahtani said. "We didn't imagine meeting him in our country, [but] we saw him here at this hospital. I didn't believe until I saw him in front of me. I shook his hand, but I still didn’t believe that this moment came here.
“Hassan was surprised too. He just kept looking at him because he had only seen his pictures, of course, everywhere in school."
Today, Hassan is dreaming again. He wants to be an astronaut, to reach for the stars that once seemed so far away.
But he also longs for his home. To hold his sisters who remained in Sharjah. To run through the halls of his house, not a hospital. To be a boy, not a patient.
The family is expected to return to the UAE in a few weeks, after doctors are certain there have been no negative effects from the operation, especially to Hassan's vision. “When I go to the UAE, I will see my sisters. I miss them so much,” he said.
