‘Excellent’ outcomes for world’s first partial heart transplant recipient
An infant with truncus arteriosus was the first to undergo the novel procedure, doctors say.
Surgeons who performed the world’s first neonatal partial heart transplant say the procedure could improve outcomes for newborns with irreparable heart valve dysfunction.
The US team reported that their patient Owen Monroe’s transplanted aortic and pulmonary valves showed adaptive growth and “excellent” haemodynamic function more than a year after the operation.
“On follow-up at age 14 months, echocardiography showed no obstruction and no insufficiency of the transplanted aortic and pulmonary valves,” they wrote in JAMA.
Owen, born in April 2022, was diagnosed with truncus arteriosus and severe valve dysfunction, said doctors at North Carolina’s Duke University Medical Center.
