US doctors say a young boy named Easton made medical history by becoming the world’s first person to receive a combined heart and thymus transplant.
The groundbreaking procedure was performed to save his life but could also revolutionize the field of organ transplantation, they hope.
The donated thymus tissue is intended to help his body stop rejecting the new heart.
Months after the surgery, tests show Easton is making good progress.
The thymus tissue is functioning, meaning his body is making critical immune cells that could ultimately reduce or even eliminate his need to take lifelong anti-rejection medication.
One of his doctors, Joseph Turek of Duke University Hospital, said: “We are very excited about this. This concept of tolerance has always been the holy grail in transplantation and we are now at the doorstep.
“This has the potential to change the face of solid organ transplantation in the future.”
The thymus gland helps develop T-cells that fight foreign substances. It teaches these immune cells what is and isn’t “self” and therefore what can be attacked.
Giving Easton cultured thymus tissue from the same donor who gave him a heart should help his body accept the new tissue, his doctors believe.
Easton was born with a weak heart and problems with his immune system. He spent his first seven months in hospital – some of them on life support – undergoing numerous heart surgeries. as well as treating recurring infections that his body couldn’t fight on its own.
His mother, Kaitlyn Sinnamon, recalls, “It helped some, but it was basically a band-aid for us to get through the transplant.”
His doctors applied to the FDA to perform an experimental type of transplant that, to their knowledge, had never been performed in combination before.
Because Easton needed a new heart and, independently, a new thymus gland, the FDA cleared the procedures, which were performed in August 2021 when Easton was six months old.
dr Turek said: “It was a very fortunate coincidence. We had the expertise to do both.
“The work we had done in the lab was based on using thymus together with a heart transplant to develop tolerance – basically retraining the immune system and growing the thymus from the same donor and the heart together.”
“We thought this was an opportunity for Easton. This could potentially be applied to all solid organs in the future if this works.”
Much more research is needed before then, including testing whether it’s possible to remove and replace the thymus in people who already have a fully functioning one.
The medical team plans to wean Easton off the immunosuppressant medication at some point to see how he’s doing.
Kaitlyn said, “I hope that as he gets older he will be proud of his scars and know that not only was he able to save his own life but the lives of other people as well.”
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