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UCSF Fetal Treatment Opens New Center

March 24, 2006
News Office: Phyllis Brown (415) 476-2557

The UCSF Fetal Treatment Center held a ribbon-cutting ceremony today to celebrate its new facility, made possible in large part by a $500,000 federal appropriation initiated by U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi and a grant from the Lucile Packard Foundation.

The new center is located at UCSF Children's Hospital on the first floor of the Ambulatory Care Center at 400 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco.

Those attending the event included Pelosi; Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF Medical Center; Dr Michael Harrison, director of the Fetal Treatment Center at UCSF; Dr. Diana Farmer, chief of Pediatric Surgery at UCSF; and the center's patients and their families.

The UCSF Fetal Treatment Center is world renowned for its expertise and innovation in the treatment of complex and potentially fatal congenital defects in utero. The center integrates specialists in surgery, genetics, obstetrics and perinatology, radiology, nursing and neonatal medicine — from initial diagnosis to long-term follow up.

This is the 25th anniversary of the first open fetal surgery in the world, performed under the leadership of Harrison, who pioneered the entire field of fetal treatment. In 1981, a UCSF team performed the first surgery on a fetus in utero, ushering in a new era of fetal intervention for life-threatening medical problems.

UCSF is a leading university that consistently defines health care worldwide by conducting advanced biomedical research, educating graduate students in the life sciences, and providing complex patient care.

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