Strange Operation Saves Little Boy( SEE DETAILS)

A heart surgeon carried out the first operation to save the life of a baby by using stem cells from placentas.

Professor Massimo Caputo who was from Bristol Heart Institute used pioneering stem cell “scaffolding” to correct baby Finley’s heart defect.

He hopes to develop the technology so children born with congenital cardiac disease won’t need as many operations.

Two year old Finley is now a happy growing little boy”.

But he was born with the main arteries in his heart the wrong way round and at just four days old had his first open-heart surgery at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.

Unfortunately the surgery didn’t solve the problem and his heart function deteriorated significantly, with the left side of the heart suffering from a severe lack of blood flow.

His mother, Melissa, from Corsham, in Wiltshire, said: “We were prepared from the start that the odds of him surviving were not good.

“After 12 hours, Finley finally came out of surgery but he needed a heart and lung bypass machine to keep alive, and his heart function had deteriorated significantly.”

After weeks in intensive care it looked like there was no conventional way to treat Finley’s condition and he was reliant on drugs to keep his heart going.

But a new procedure was tried, involving stem cells from a placenta bank.

Prof Caputo injected the cells directly into Finley’s heart in the hope they would help damaged blood vessels grow.

The so-called “allogenic” cells were grown by scientists at the Royal Free Hospital in London, and millions of them were injected into Finley’s heart muscle.

Allogenic cells have the ability to grow into tissue that is not rejected and in Finley’s case, have regenerated damaged heart muscle.

“We weaned him from all the drugs he was on, we weaned him from ventilation,” said Prof Caputo.

“He was discharged from ITU and is now a happy growing little boy.”