Surgeons plan four more baboon-heart transplants

Press, 2 November 1984, Page 1

Surgeons plan four more baboon-heart transplants

NZAP-Reuter Loma Linda California

Surgeons made plans yesterday to place the hearts of baboons in four more sick babies while the first recipient, 19-day-old “Baby Fae,” happily gulped food from a bottle.

• “ ‘Baby Fae,’ who has lived longer than any other human who received an animal heart, is doing well. She no longer needs breathing apparatus , and her vital signs are normal,” a hospital spokeswoman said. A nurse who is helping to care for the baby said she was “happily gulping her formula,” referring to the mixture of water and jglucose being fed to “Baby Fae.”

Officials at Loma Linda

University Hospital, where the baby received her baboon heart during five hours of surgery on Friday, expressed optimism about her recovery and said they expected to do four more such operations. In a controversy over the transplant doctors have said other methods could have’ been tried first and that no attempt was made to obtain a human heart

“Baby Fae,” who has not been identified further because her parents do not want publicity, was born with the left side of her heart, which pumps blood into the body, undeveloped. Doctors said she could have died within days without the surgery. “The success so far of the

operation surely indicates we should not give up on the programme,” said the chairman of the hospital’s Department of . Pediatrics, Dr John Mace.

A spokeswoman said the , hospital has set aside' funds s for four similar A medical review of the procedure of using baboons’ hearts is expected' afterwards.

A professor of surgery at the hospital, Dr . David Hinshaw, said there was a possibility “Baby Fae” might outgrow her heart, at present the size of a walnut, in eight to 10 years .and heed another one. The head of the surgical team which performed the surgery, Dr Leonard Bailey, believes the heart will grow

with the child. “We are walking in untrod territory here,” said Dr Hinshaw. “Ohly time will tell.” ■ At least four other

patients are known to have received the hearts of primates, in each case chimpanzees. Until now, Benjamin Fortes, of South Africa, who received a chimpanzee’s

heart in 1977 when he was aged 59, had survived the longest. He lived for 3% days with his new heart Surgeons at Loma Linda University Hospital hope the use of the comparatively new drug, Cyclospo-rin-A, which helps to prevent a body from rejecting a foreign organ, will help “Baby Fae” survive.