A 5lb newborn boy with a life-threatening heart defect received a world-first partial heart transplant using living tissue that may never need to be replaced. child Owen Monroe, who is now four months old, was born with his two main arteries — the aorta and pulmonary artery — fused together in a condition called truncus arteriosus.Doctors separated them and replaced 'leaky' heart valves shortly after birth using with living tissue that will grow with him, avoiding further surgery. In operations to repair fused valves, dead tissue is usually used — but it needs to be replaced in extensive surgery up to three times before adulthood, and every 10 years after that.
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