TED演讲:无创治疗心脏疾病的新方法(2)

 In the coming years, I became a medical student. 后来几年，我去了医学院读书。

One of every hundred children born worldwide has some kind of heart disease. 我得知，世界上每一百个新生儿中就会有一个患有某种心脏疾病。

There's a part of this problem I think I can solve -- the part of this problem I have spent my life working on. 我认为这是个我有能力去帮助治愈的疾病--事实上，我一生都致力于这项研究。

The problem starts during pregnancy¹.  这个疾病产生于怀孕期间。

The fetus² needs to survive inside the mother. Survival depends on communication between the systemic and the pulmonary blood. 胎儿是否能够在母亲腹中存活，取决于血液在体循环与肺循环间的交换。

At the moment of birth, this communication needs to stop. 胎儿出生时，这一交换必须停止。

If it doesn't close, the baby has a hole in the heart. It is caused by prematurity³ and genetic⁴ conditions. 如果未能停止，婴儿就会出现先天性心脏缺损。这个问题多由早产及遗传因素引发。

But what we know today is that a lack of oxygen is also one of the causes. 但如今我们发现，缺氧也会引发这一疾病。

As you can see in the chart, the frequency of this kind of hole dramatically increases with altitude. 在图中可以看到，随着海拔的增高，这种病出现的频率也大幅增加。

When you look at patients with this condition, they seem desperate to breathe. 先天性心脏缺损的患者难以正常呼吸。

To close the hole, major surgery used to be the only solution. 过去，我们只能通过大手术来修复这一缺损。

1 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

2 fetus   

n.胎，胎儿

参考例句：

• In the fetus,blood cells are formed in different sites at different ages.胎儿的血细胞在不同时期生成在不同的部位。
• No one knows why a fetus is not automatically rejected by the mother's immune system. 没有人知道为什么母亲的免疫系统不会自动排斥胎儿。

3 prematurity   

n.早熟，过早，早开花

参考例句：

• Associated anomalies and prematurity significantly influence the mortality rate. 并发畸形与早产儿显著地影响死亡率。 来自辞典例句
• Prematurity may also result in visual impairment or blindness. 早产也可导致视力障碍或失明。 来自互联网

4 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。