Dr. Andrew Kirsch, Medical Director of Georgia Urology and Chief of Pediatric Urology at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, treats countless children for reflux and has been at the forefront of vesicoureteral reflux (urinary reflux). During his career, he has treated generations of families with different treatment methods due to ever-evolving advancements.
While working with a 13-month-old reflux patient, Dr. Kirsch realized he had treated her mother, Marisa Hutchens, for the same condition more than 20 years earlier. These two specific cases serve as a tangible example of how the management of vesicoureteral reflux continues to evolve.
Typically, urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters down to the bladder. Vesicoureteral reflux is the abnormal flow of urine from the bladder back up to the ureters that connect the kidneys to the bladder. When Hutchens was a year old, Dr. Kirsch treated her reflux with an open operation, which included a C-section incision. When Hutchens brought her daughter to Dr. Kirsch for the same vesicoureteral reflux condition, he treated her with an injection of Deflux, a gel-like mixture that makes it more difficult for urine to flow backward toward the kidney. In fact, Dr. Kirsch developed a specific application of Deflux injection he calls the Double HIT (Hydrodistention Implantation Technique), which has become the most used method worldwide.
Evolution for treatment continues, with Dr. Kirsch now incorporating the use of robotic surgery and endoscopic injection with Deflux to treat vesicoureteral reflux.
