A girl from Yunnan experienced no improvement in her urinary incontinence after undergoing surgery to release a tethered spinal cord. The Xiao procedure helped her recover

A 6-year-old girl from Yunnan, nicknamed Xiao Ran, was born with congenital myelomeningocele, along with urinary and fecal incontinence. In 2013, after undergoing surgery at a local hospital to release a tethered spinal cord, her incontinence issues saw no improvement. In August of this year, Xiao Ran’s family came to Xiao Chuan-Guo Hospital in Shenzhen. After an examination, Professor Xiao Chuan-Guo found that Xiao Ran’s condition was relatively mild, with incontinence and weak but not deformed feet. Professor Xiao Chuan-Guo personally performed the Xiao procedure on Xiao Ran. After several months of recovery, there was a significant improvement in her incontinence.

Why didn’t Xiao Ran’s incontinence improve after the initial surgery to release her tethered spinal cord? Theoretically, performing only the spinal cord detethering surgery does not improve incontinence in most patients. This surgery primarily aims to release adhesions of the nerve fibers within the spinal canal. For the surgery to potentially improve incontinence, it requires that the nerves are undamaged, the surgery is perfectly executed to release all adhesions, and no new adhesions form. However, most patients already have nerve damage or incomplete nerve development from repairing the herniated sac. Therefore, establishing a new urinary nerve reflex pathway through the Xiao procedure is essential to fundamentally solve this issue.