Surgeons at Duke Health, USA, have performed the world’s first partial heart transplant on a newborn with truncus arteriosus and a leaky valve in a vessel. The living arteries and valves were procured from a freshly donated heart and fused onto the infant’s heart. The donor's heart had strong valves but weak muscle tissue for a full transplant. Generally, two preserved cadaver arteries with valves are used to treat such conditions.
However, implanted cadaver tissues do not grow along with the child’s heart, and valves need to be replaced by multiple open heart surgeries. According to the chief surgeon, the novel procedure eliminates the need for multiple open heart surgeries and solves the growing valve problem. The child has been showing remarkable growth since the transplant. Can partial heart transplants be used for other heart treatments such as valve and aortic root replacement?…
