Dr. Sherif Emil talks about his experience working with Flourish in Canada. Dr. Emil was the first surgeon to do a hybrid procedure with Dr. Mario Zaritzky's magnets and surgery at the same time. Watch the full interview here.
The Esophageal Magnetic Anastomosis procedure, or Flourish, is a minimally invasive procedure to treat Esophageal Atresia in newborns under a year old. With the use of magnets, Flourish will promote esophageal stretching and growth for anastomosis to occur within 3 to 13 days. These magnets were first designed by Dr. Zaritzky in the early 90s and built by Cook Medical for patient use in 2001. Since then, over 30 patients have been successfully treated with Flourish. Dr. Zaritzky has two patents with Cook Medical now: the original device (2007) and the improved model (2013). Flourish was awarded the Industry Innovation Award by the National Organization for Rare Diseases in 2018.
Despite Flourish's success story, it is still a work in progress. It is getting close to being granted FDA approval and more data is getting published to improve outcomes.
