Her original heart? Turns out it’s the keeper

A British girl is thought to have become the first heart transplant patient in Britain and possibly in the world to have had her donor organ removed and her own heart restarted, a London hospital spokesman said on Thursday.

Hannah Clark, 12, of South Wales had a heterotopic transplant operation -- known as a “piggyback” because the donor heart is placed next to the original organ -- 10 years ago.

Complications arose, however, after her body recently started reacting badly to the drugs she was taking to stop her body from rejecting the donor heart. Surgeons then made the decision to remove it.

“We discovered that actually her old heart was now working quite well,” said a spokesman from London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

“So we removed the transplant heart, we were able to take her off the anti-rejection drugs and reconnected her old heart back up again and it worked. She’s doing very well.”

He added: “We would be surprised if anybody came up with another case. Maybe it’s a world first.”

Sir Magdi Yacoub, the Egyptian-born surgeon who performed Clark’s original transplant, advised surgeons during the Feb. 20 operation. He said he was delighted that the girl’s heart had recovered so well.

Medical experts said the operation was an important development in treating people suffering from cardiomyopathy, whereby the heart becomes inflamed and functions poorly.

“Surgeons like Magdi Yacoub have thought for some time that if a heart is failing because of acute inflammation, it might be able to recover if rested,” said Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation.