Heart transplant may normalize damaged heart in British teen

By David Liu

A British teenager’s own heart become fully functional four years after a heart transplant she received as an infant and she is now well alive after doctors removed the transplanted heart, according to a case report published in the Lancet.

Hannah Clark suffered heart failure from heart failure from cardiomyopathy at the age of 8 months. At 11 months, Clark underwent a surgery to get a donator’s heart while her own heart remains in position and she survived.

Because of the transplant, Clark needed to take immunosuppressant drugs, which reduced her immunity, leading to development of a cancer known as Epstein-Barr-virus-associated post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder.

Clark's own heart became normal functionally already at the age of 4, but doctors did not want to remove the grafted heart because of surgery risk.

Soon she was diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately after a few years of treatment, she finally got in remission.

When Clark was 10 years old, doctors removed the transplanted heart and let her own heart work alone. She is now free of the immunosuppressant drugs and cancer.

Suppressing immunity is known to increase the cancer risk. But doctors speculated that in the case of Clark, the transplanted heart helped her own become normal.  

But in reality, no one knows exactly what has happened.