Beilinson doctors perform Israel's first in-womb surgery on a placental tumour

Doctors at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, part of the Clalit health system, have carried out what they describe as the first operation of its kind in Israel: surgery inside the womb to stop a tumour on the placenta from killing an unborn baby. The hospital made the case public at the start of June 2026, after the mother had been discharged.

The woman was 25 weeks pregnant when a routine anatomy scan found a rare growth on the surface of the placenta. Follow-up ultrasounds showed that the tumour was disturbing the flow of blood between mother and fetus. The strain had already caused heart failure in the fetus, which was getting worse quickly. Placental tumours are usually harmless and often need no treatment, and late in pregnancy doctors can simply deliver the baby. At 25 weeks, though, a very premature birth carried serious risks of its own.

The team, led by Dr. Yuval Gielchinsky, director of the Clalit-Beilinson Fetal Medicine Center, together with Dr. Kinneret Tenenbaum, head of the hospital's twin pregnancy clinic, chose an emergency endoscopic operation. Working through a narrow scope inserted into the uterus, they found the blood vessels feeding the tumour and sealed them with heat, cutting off its supply. Gielchinsky explained that this was possible only because the tumour sat in a part of the placenta the instruments could reach.

After the procedure the mother was monitored by the hospital's maternal-fetal medicine unit and then sent home, with specialist follow-up planned for the rest of the pregnancy.