Heart to heart
Three babies given chance at life, but transplant procedure raises ethical issues
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Three babies are alive after each received an unorthodox heart transplant, researchers report in the Aug. 14 New England Journal of Medicine. But the method has resparked debate about the definition of death.
The experimental transplant procedure marks the first time infants have received hearts from infant donors who had been taken off life support.
And had the transplants not been done, all six babies would have died, says the study’s lead author, Mark Boucek of the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Fla.
Boucek also says that each year, 50 to 100 infants are added to the waiting list for a heart transplant. A quarter of the infants die while waiting.