Registered: Nov 2003
Location: Pandora (South of Nowhere)
Diseased heart recovers over 10 years
Possibly world's first procedure:
Girl's diseased heart over the last 10 years recovers
04/13/2006
Hannah Clark
quote:
Yacoub said the success of the operation was "very very exciting" and opened new avenues of treatment for patients with heart failure.
A girl whose body began to reject a donor's heart has had it removed because her own heart is now strong enough to pump her blood on its own again.
Speaking on Thursday, heart transplant patient Hannah Clark said she had been excited about the operation, but a little nervous in case she had not recovered.
Asked how she felt now, the 12-year old Welsh girl said she felt fine but "empty" at having only one heart inside her instead of two.
Doctors had transplanted a donor heart to "piggyback" on Hannah Clark's diseased organ a decade ago.
But recently she developed severe complications with her immune system due to the immune suppression drugs she was taking.
So, doctors at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London decided to remove the donor heart so that they could take her off the immune suppression drugs she needed to keep her body from rejecting it.
Under the expert guidance of retired Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, they removed her donor heart and restarted her dormant one on February 20 of this year.
The procedure, the first of its kind in the United Kingdom and possibly the world, took less than four hours and Hannah was at home in Mountain Ash, south Wales, within five days.
The theory that Hannah's own heart had recovered sufficiently over the last ten years to be able to function as a working organ once again proved correct.
Yacoub said the success of the operation was "very very exciting" and opened new avenues of treatment for patients with heart failure.
Hannah had suffered from cardiomyopathy, a condition in which her heart was inflamed to a much bigger than its original size.
The hospital said she was doing well, but because her case was so unique doctors did not know what her long-term prognosis was.
This is so remarkable - I'm awed as I read this! The things that are possible now are just incredible!!
Jem
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Apr-13-2006 19:50
legendary_waz
Supreme tranceaddict
Registered: Oct 2005
Location: Mississauga, Canada
Im sometimes shocked at how magnificent the human body is. Its quite amazing how it can repair itself.
Apr-13-2006 20:01
loconet
de la puta madre!
Registered: Jul 2002
Location: San Francisco
That is truely amazing. What is amazing as well is how blessed we are to have people such as Sir Magdi Yacoub (mentioned in the article) walking this earth doing what they do.
quote:
(ar: مجدي يعقوب), (born November 16, 1935), is a heart surgeon.
He was born in Aswan, Egypt to a Coptic Orthodox family hailing from the Southern town of Assiut. He studied at Cairo University. He taught at Chicago, and moved to Britain in 1962 where he became a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Harefield Hospital (1969-2001) and director of medical research and education (from 1992). He was appointed professor at the National Heart and Lung Institute in 1986, and was involved in the development of the techniques of heart and heart-lung transplantation. In 1980 came his transplant operation on Derrick Morris, who until his death in July 2005 was Europe's longest surviving heart transplant patient. Among celebrities whose lives Magdi Yacoub extended was the comedian, Eric Morecambe. In 2002 he was selected to spearhead a government recruitment drive for overseas doctors. He was knighted in 1992 by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
Having retired from performing surgery at the age of 65, he continues to act as a high profile consultant and amabassador for the huge benefits of transplant surgery.
Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Very, very cool
I'm a big believer in the body being able to repair itself given the chance.
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"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."
Apr-13-2006 22:38
rabbitjoker
aural sadist
Registered: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto, ON, CANADA
10 years... Everything is 10 bloody years.
10 years of disease, 10 years to recover, 10 years of one's life, 10 years easily forgotten, 10 years worth nothing.
