Eugen Aburel

Eugen Bogdan Aburel
Born(1899-01-23)January 23, 1899
Galați, Kingdom of Romania
DiedDecember 16, 1975(1975-12-16) (aged 76)
Bucharest, Socialist Republic of Romania
NationalityRomanian
Alma materFaculty of Medicine of Iași
Known forfirst to employ lumbar plexus block and caudal epidural analgesia during childbirth
AwardsOrdre des Palmes académiques
Scientific career
Fieldssurgery, gynaecology
InstitutionsTarnier Hospital [fr]
Boucicaut Hospital [fr]
Faculty of Medicine of Iași
Faculty of Medicine of Bucharest
Filantropia Hospital [ro]
Thesis Contribuțiuni la tratamentul infecției puerperale  (1923)

Eugen Bogdan Aburel (January 23, 1899 – 16 December 1975) was a Romanian surgeon and obstetrician. He introduced innovative techniques in gynecologic surgery.[1]

He was born Galați; his father came from a family of Armenians of Moldavia, while his mother was a descendant of the family of metropolitan Veniamin Costache [ro].[2] He started his secondary studies at the Gheorghe Roșca Codreanu High School in Bârlad[3] and finished them in 1917 at the Vasile Alecsandri High School in Galați. After attending the artillery military school in Botoșani and graduating with the rank of second lieutenant, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of Iași, obtaining his doctor in medicine degree in 1923 with thesis Contribuțiuni la tratamentul infecției puerperale.[2]

After deciding to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, Aburel went in 1928 to Paris, where he worked at Tarnier [fr] and Boucicaut [fr] hospitals under professors Brindeau and Le Lorier. During this time, he also did research in the Physiology Department at Sorbonne University (under Louis Lapicque), and in the Laboratory of Applied Physiology at Henri-Rousselle Hospital. In 1933 he returned to Romania; three years later he was appointed Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Faculty of Medicine of Iași and in 1945 at the Faculty of Medicine of Bucharest.[4]

In 1931, Aburel was the first to describe blocking the lumbar plexus during early labor, followed by a caudal epidural injection for the expulsion phase.[5][6] In his work, which he presented at a meeting in Paris,[7] he described using a continuous epidural catheter for pain relief during childbirth.[4][8] He was the first to recognize and write about the afferent nerve supply to the uterus; he concluded that the uterus had a "double sensory innervation" with sympathetic fibers entering the spinal cord at T11–L2 and cerebrospinal fibers entering at S2–S4. His technique was to administer a sacral epidural anesthetic of dibucaine with adrenaline in the first stage of labor; if additional medication was needed, it would be administered through a needle catheter placed into the caudal canal during the second stage of labor or into the lumbar aortic plexus during the first.[9] In 1934, Aburel developed the method of instillation abortion.[10] In the 1950s, he was the first to describe radical trachelectomy as treatment for early-stage cervical cancers;[11] this technique was all but forgotten until the 1990s, when it was revitalized, providing fertility-sparing options for patients with such cancers.[12]

From 1952 to 1969, he was director of the Clinical Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology Filantropia [ro];[13] during that time, he also practiced at the maternity wards of the Witting [ro], Colțea [ro], and Polizu [ro] hospitals.[2] In the late 1950s, Aburel was investigated by the Securitate for the scientific contacts he had in the West and for some of his past associations. In 1959, Theodor Burghele, the rector of the Faculty of Medicine, reported him to the communist authorities for "inappropriate attitude," and tried to dismiss him from his position as Chair of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department; nevertheless, Aburel kept his position until he retired in 1969.[2]

In 1968 he was elected a foreign corresponding member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine and in 1973 he was awarded the Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French Republic.[4] In 1971 he was awarded the "Meritul Sanitar" Order, First class by the Romanian government.[14] He died in Bucharest in 1975, at age 76.

  1. ^ Collis, Rachel E.; Urquhart, John; Plaat, Felicity (2002). Textbook of Obstetric Anaesthesia. Cambridge University Press. p. 13. ISBN 1-900151-77-4.
  2. ^ a b c d Tilibașa, Emilian. "Eugen Aburel – un doctor luat în colimator de Securitate". Historia (in Romanian). Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  3. ^ "Eugen Aburel". www.bvau.ro (in Romanian). V.A. Urechia County Library, Galați. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  4. ^ a b c Curelaru, Ioan; Sandu, Lucian (June 1982). "Eugen Bogdan Aburel (1899–1975). The pioneer of regional analgesia for pain relief in childbirth". Anaesthesia. 37 (6): 663–669. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2044.1982.tb01279.x. PMID 6178307. S2CID 23183413.
  5. ^ Aburel, Eugen (1931). "L'Anesthésie locale continue (prolongée) en obstétrique". Bulletin de la Société d'Obstétrique et Gynécologie de Paris (in French). 20: 35–37.
  6. ^ Aldrete, J. Antonio; Sainz Cabrera, Humberto; Wright, Amos J. (2004). "Manuel Martinez Curbelo and Continuous Lumbar Epidural Anesthesia". Bulletin of Anesthesia History. 22 (4): 1–8. doi:10.1016/S1522-8649(04)50045-8. PMID 20503747.
  7. ^ Chau, Anthony; Tsen, Lawrence C. (2018-12-01). "Update on Modalities and Techniques for Labor Epidural Analgesia and Anesthesia" (PDF). Advances in Anesthesia. 36 (1): 139–162. doi:10.1016/j.aan.2018.07.006. ISSN 0737-6146. PMID 30414635. S2CID 53286566.
  8. ^ Goerig, Michael; Freitag, Marc; Standl, Thomas (December 2002). "One hundred years of epidural anaesthesia—the men behind the technical development". International Congress Series. 1242: 203–212. doi:10.1016/s0531-5131(02)00770-7.
  9. ^ Stampone, Donna (July 1990). "The history of obstetric anesthesia". Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing. 4 (1): 1–13. doi:10.1097/00005237-199007000-00003. PMID 2192027.
  10. ^ Potts, D. M. (January 1970). "Termination of pregnancy". British Medical Bulletin. 26 (1): 65–71. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a070745. PMID 4904688.
  11. ^ Căpîlna, Mihai Emil; Ioanid, Nicolae; Scripcariu, Viorel; Gavrilescu, Madalina Mihaela; Szabo, Bela (2014). "Abdominal Radical Trachelectomy: A Romanian Series". International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer. 24 (3): 615–619. doi:10.1097/IGC.0000000000000076. ISSN 1048-891X. PMC 4047319. PMID 24445820.
  12. ^ Willows, Karla; Lennox, Genevieve; Covens, Allan (2016-10-21). "Fertility-sparing management in cervical cancer: balancing oncologic outcomes with reproductive success". Gynecologic Oncology Research and Practice. 3 (1): 9. doi:10.1186/s40661-016-0030-9. ISSN 2053-6844. PMC 5073939. PMID 27795832.
  13. ^ "Spitalul Clinic de Obstetrică și Ginecologie Filantropia". spitalulfilantropia.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  14. ^ "Decretul nr. 153/1971 privind conferirea ordinului și medaliei Meritul Sanitar unor cadre medico-sanitare". lege5.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved December 29, 2022.