Interesting Article

Heart heals itself after transplant
British girl had donor organ implanted onto her own to give hers time to recover

By Maria Cheng
Photo by Barry Batchelor, Associated Press

Associated Press
Published: Monday, July 13, 2009 9:54 p.m. MDT

LONDON — British doctors designed a radical solution to save a girl with major heart problems in 1995: they implanted a donor heart directly onto her own failing heart.

After 10 years with two blood-pumping organs, Hannah Clark's faulty one did what many experts had thought impossible: it healed itself enough so that doctors could remove the donated heart.

But she also had a price to pay: the drugs Clark took to prevent her body from rejecting the donated heart led to malignant cancer that required chemotherapy.

Details of Clark's revolutionary transplant and follow-up care were published online today in the medical journal Lancet.

"This shows that the heart can indeed repair itself if given the opportunity," said Dr. Douglas Zipes, a past president of the American College of Cardiology. Zipes was not linked to Clark's treatment or to the Lancet paper. "The heart apparently has major regenerative powers, and it is now key to find out how they work."

In 1994, when Clark was eight months old, she developed severe heart failure and doctors put her on a waiting list to get a new heart. But Clark's heart difficulties caused problems with her lungs, meaning she also needed a lung transplant.

To avoid doing a risky heart and lung transplant, doctors decided to try something completely different.

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Deseret News Article & Video

Musician awaiting heart transplant performs at Primary Children's telethon

By Carrie A. Moore
Photo by Jeffery D. Allred, Deseret News

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 11:24 p.m. MDT

Editor's note: This is the fourth story in an occasional series

Musician Paul Cardall doesn't get to the piano much anymore, but when he does, the music is straight from his heart, the tired one that needs to be replaced soon.

Two small cameo appearances last weekend during the 27th annual KSL/Primary Children's Medical Center telethon provided him a chance to give back to a hospital he's frequented so often, there's a bronze wall plaque outside the electrocardiogram lab bearing his name.

It was placed there years ago by family members, whose donation to the hospital came after he survived a Fontan surgery to treat severe congenital heart disease.

At 36, he regularly visits his doctors in the cardiology clinic at Primary Children's, despite the fact that almost all of his fellow patients are 18 or younger. Continue reading the story