Doctors in the U.S. Restarted a Stopped Heart from One Infant Inside the Chest of Another  

Doctors at a clinic affiliated with Duke University in North Carolina have successfully transplanted a heart into an infant recipient—a heart that had already stopped beating before being removed from the donor’s chest, according to the BBC.

Several similar cases have previously been described in medical literature, typically referred to by the acronym DCD—donation after circulatory death.

However, this marks the first time this approach has been successfully used in an operation on a three-month-old infant, and notably, without the need for expensive equipment usually required to “resuscitate” the heart outside the body.

There is a global shortage of donor organs, especially in cases involving very young patients.

Typically, organs for transplantation are harvested from patients declared brain dead—meaning all brain and neural activity has ceased, while life in the body is sustained artificially with medical equipment.

Such cases, while not exceedingly rare, are inherently limited in number.

If, however, the use of hearts after circulatory death can become routine, the number of transplantable hearts could increase significantly.

“We simply can’t afford to lose viable hearts,” the researchers told journalists. “Especially when it comes to infants.”

There is usually a brief time lapse between cardiac arrest and the moment a doctor officially declares death due to irreversible loss of circulation.

In transplant medicine, those few minutes are critical. Once blood stops circulating, oxygen supply to organs ceases, and tissues begin to suffer oxygen deprivation, which can quickly cause irreversible damage.

To prevent this, the Duke University team developed a “rapid recovery” protocol: the heart muscle is immediately cooled and flushed with a special solution to halt the damage process.

The heart is restarted only after transplantation—inside the infant recipient.

In the past, similar cases required a complex external system to keep the heart functioning outside the body. However, that technology is bulky and costly, making it inaccessible to many hospitals.

So, was the transplant successful?

In short, yes. According to doctors, the operation went smoothly with no complications. The baby’s heart started beating, and the child began to recover.

Doctors also revealed that this was not the only case. Since the case described in the medical journal, the same method has been used in two additional transplants. All three children survived and are currently doing well.

Still, doctors stress that these are only early steps toward full recovery.

They emphasize the importance of ongoing monitoring of all three patients to determine, over time, which candidates are best suited for this groundbreaking approach.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter