In a groundbreaking development in heart surgery, the world’s first partial heart transplant has shown remarkable success, exceeding the hopes of the pioneering team at Duke Health.
This achievement, first performed in the spring of 2022 on an infant requiring heart valve replacement, has ushered in a new era in pediatric cardiac care.
Traditionally, heart valve replacements in children used non-living valves, which don’t grow with the patient. This meant that children had to undergo multiple high-risk surgeries as they grew, each carrying a significant risk of mortality.
The innovative procedure at Duke Health, however, used living valves that can grow with the child, significantly reducing the need for repeated surgeries.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), validates the effectiveness of this new method.
According to the findings, the transplanted valves and arteries are functioning well and growing in sync with the young patient, a breakthrough in heart transplant technology.
Dr. Joseph W. Turek, the leader of this pioneering procedure and Duke’s chief of pediatric cardiac surgery, emphasized the potential of this technology to change the lives of many children.
Additionally, the procedure requires far less immunosuppressant medication than a full heart transplant, lessening the risk of long-term side effects.
This advancement also introduces the concept of a domino heart transplant. In this procedure, a patient who needs a stronger heart muscle but has healthy valves receives a full heart transplant.
Their healthy valves are then used for another patient, effectively saving two lives with one donor heart. This approach could double the use of donated hearts for children with heart disease.
So far, the partial heart transplant has been performed 13 times globally, including nine times at Duke. Some of these have been domino heart transplants, demonstrating the viability and potential impact of this approach.
The next step, as Dr. Turek suggests, is to bring this innovation to clinical trials to increase the availability of heart transplants significantly.
This breakthrough not only treats more children but also honors the generosity of donor families, offering hope and life to other children in need.
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The research findings can be found in JAMA.
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