Miracle’ girl’s heart heals itself after transplant

[lildreamer316]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31893123/ns/health-heart_health/wid/11915773?GT1=31037

The heart apparently has major regenerative powers,’ says cardiologist"\



updated 1:40 p.m. ET, Tues., July 14, 2009
LONDON - British doctors designed a radical 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 faulty one did what many experts had thought impossible: It healed itself enough so that doctors could remove the donated heart.

<snip>
"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. Zipes was not linked to Clark's treatment or to the Lancet paper. "The heart apparently has major regenerative powers, and it is now key to find out how they work."

<snip>

Zipes said if doctors can figure out how Clark's heart healed itself and develop a treatment from that mechanism, many other cardiac patients could benefit.

At the moment, doctors aren't sure how that regeneration happens. Some think there are a small number of stem cells in the heart, which may somehow be triggered in crisis situations to heal damaged tissue.

..more at link..


I just think this is encouraging, fascinating, and funny. :)

[I Have A Dream]

1. This is a great story. I hope that they can figure out...

how it happened.

:)