Wednesday, July 15, 2009

International News

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-07-14-heart-transplant_N.htm

British doctors designed an amazing 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 weak heart did the impossible; it healed itself enough so that doctors could remove the donated heart.

“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. Four and a half years after the heart was implanted, both hearts were working fine, so doctors decided not to take out the extra heart. However, the powerful drugs Clark was taking to prevent her from rejecting the donor heart then caused cancer, which led to chemotherapy. Even when doctors lowered the doses of drugs to suppress Clark's immune system, the cancer spread, and Clark's body eventually rejected the donor heart. Luckily, by that time, Clark's own heart seemed to have fully recovered. In February 2006, Dr. Victor Tsang of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, and other doctors removed Clark's donor heart, and she recovered from the cancer.

I think that this story is absolutely miraculous. I have never heard of anything like it. I can’t believe that she had two hearts and was still living, it seems so complicated. After all of that happening it’s even more amazing that she survived after getting cancer. It was fourteen years ago that doctors decided to do that so I can only imagine what incredible things doctors do now that I have no idea about.

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