Mariami, the first partially heart-transplanted baby in Europe, is discharged

Madrid.– The Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital has discharged little Mariami, the seven-month-old girl who has been the first baby under one year old to receive a partial heart transplant in Europe, “a triple milestone in pediatric cardiac surgery”. According to the Madrid hospital center, the little girl has shown a favorable evolution at all times, but has required several weeks of hospitalization after leaving the Intensive Care Unit, where she only had to stay for two days. The technique, they have recalled, is endorsed by the Regional Office and the National Transplant Organization and consists of implanting only a part of this organ (valves) to children who require valve replacement surgery, but do not present a muscle failure that requires complete intervention.

Innovative procedure

Currently, these pediatric patients receive valve implants made of materials that do not grow with the body, forcing them to undergo several operations throughout their lives to replace them. With this innovative procedure, this is avoided, as these grow with the patient.

Specifically, they have underlined that Mariami’s case is of “special complexity”, as it has required the combination of two other techniques in which the Gregorio Marañón Hospital has also been a pioneering center in the field of pediatric heart transplantation: when donor and recipient are of incompatible blood groups, as well as a controlled asystole donation. Therefore, Mariami has become a “triple feat in pediatric cardiac surgery”: a partial heart transplant, with blood incompatibility and from a donation in asystole.

Greater utilization of pediatric cardiac donations

This new advance from the Gregorio Marañón Hospital will benefit children with congenital malformations in which the heart valves have not formed properly, leading to serious malfunction. In Spain, around 4,000 children are born each year with this type of health problem.

Likewise, this new technique will also allow for greater use of pediatric heart donations, which are very limited.

“Bearing in mind that children who require a conventional total transplant will always be prioritized, this strategy opens up three new scenarios. In all of them, one or two children can benefit from the partial transplant depending on the valves that need to be replaced,” they explained.

From the Gregorio Marañón they have emphasized that it is “important” to remember that this new technique, as a process related to a transplant, is possible “thanks to the generosity of the donor and the family, a fundamental solidarity to articulate the entire system”.