Baby makes medical history with world’s first heart and thymus transplant

Technique could now be used for liver and kidney patients

An American baby made medical history by undergoing the world’s first-ever heart and thymus transplant in a procedure that could change the way organ transplants are done.

Little Easton Sinnamon underwent the operation that doctors hope could make transplants more successful by reducing the chance of the body rejecting the donated organ.

It could also reduce the need for patients to spend years taking medications, which can cause kidney issues and even cancer,  to prevent the rejection.

When doctors at North Carolina’s Duke Health transplanted a donated heart into Easton Sinnamon, the youngster also received cultured tissue from the thymus gland of the donor.

The thymus stimulates the production of white blood “T cells” that fight off infection, and doctors expected that Easton’s immune system would recognise the donor heart as his own.

The little boy was born with a heart defect that prevented one of his heart valves from closing, and he underwent open heart surgery to try and correct it at just five days old.

But the procedure was only partially successful and doctors decided he would need a heart transplant to survive.

Easton’s immune system was also not working to fight off infections, so last August he became the world’s first patient to receive a new heart and cultured thymus tissue from the same donor.

The heart transplant was performed first, then two weeks later his thymus was replaced.

The youngster has been receiving medications to suppress his immune system to prevent rejection, but doctors say the new thymus tissue should help his body accept the new organ and allow him to stop taking the medications over the next year.

Easton, who is now one, still gets food and medication through feeding tube, but his family is thrilled to now have him home.

“The way that he was in the hospital, it was an amazing feeling bringing him home,” his father Brandon Cinnamon told The Raleigh News & Observer.

A transplanted heart normally functions for between 10 and 15 years, but the doctors hope that Easton’s could last for decades.

“I hope that as he gets older he gets to be proud of his scars and know that he not only got to save his own life but got to save other people’s lives as well,” said his mother, Kaitlyn.

Dr Joseph Turek, Duke’s chief of pediatric cardiac surgery, said the operation could be repeated with other organs such as kidneys and livers.

“This could affect thousands and thousands of patients who need transplants down the road,” he said