month-old boy by implanting the world's
smallest artificial heart to keep the infant
alive until a donor was found for a
transplant.
The doctors at Rome's Bambino Gesu
hospital said the operation was carried out
last month and made public this week. The
baby, whose identity has not been disclosed,
was kept alive for 13 days before the
transplant and is now doing well.
The baby was suffering from dilated
myocardiopathy, a heart muscle disease
which normally causes stretched or
enlarged fibers of the heart. The disease
gradually makes the heart weaker, stopping
its ability to pump blood effectively.
Before the implant, the child also had a
serious infection around a mechanical pump
that had been fitted earlier to support the
function of his natural heart.
"From a surgical point of view, this was not
really difficult. The only difficulty that we met
is that the child was operated on several
times before," he said.
Amodeo said the baby had become family
and his team wanted to do everything to
help him.
"The patient was in our intensive care unit
since one month of age. So he was a mascot
for us, he was one of us," the doctor said.
"Every day, every hour, for more than one
year he was with us. So when we had a
problem we couldn't do anything more than
our best," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment