Duke Health Performs World's First Partial Heart Transplant | Duke Health

A team at Duke Health has performed what is believed to be the world’s first partial heart transplant, with the living arteries and valves from a freshly donated heart fused onto a patient’s existing heart.
The goal is to allow the valves to grow with the pediatric patient over time, increasing life expectancy. The team believes a similar approach could be used to place newly donated heart valves in countless other children with heart defects.
“This procedure potentially solves the problem of a growing valve,” said Joseph W. Turek, M.D., Ph.D., Duke’s chief of pediatric cardiac surgery, who led the landmark surgery.
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