A heart surgeon says he "probably saved the life" of a baby he operated on using stem cells from the placenta, a method used for the first time in the world.
Professor Massimo Caputo of the Bristol Heart Institute used stem cells to remove a heart defect in little Finley.
He hopes to develop technology so that children born with congenital heart defects will not need as many surgeries.
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Two-year-old Finley is "now a happy little boy who is growing beautifully".
Just four days after he was born, Finley had his first heart surgery because the main arteries were in the wrong place.
Unfortunately, the surgery did not solve the problem and the heart function was significantly worse, and the left side of the heart was not getting enough blood.
"From the beginning, we were prepared that there was little chance for him to survive,"
"After 12 hours, Finley finally came out of surgery, but he needed a heart-lung bypass machine to stay alive and his heart function had deteriorated significantly," says his mother Melissa from Korsham today.
After weeks spent in intensive care, there seemed to be no solution to his condition and he was living only thanks to medication.
However, a new method using stem cells from the placenta has provided a solution.
Professor Caputo injected the cells directly into Finley's heart in the hope that they would help the damaged blood vessels grow.
So-called "allogeneic" cells were grown by scientists at the Royal London Hospital, and millions were injected into Finley's heart muscle.
Allogeneic cells have the ability to grow into tissue that is not discarded but, in Finley's case, regenerates damaged heart muscle.
"He doesn't have to take medicine, he doesn't have to be on a ventilator," Professor Caputo said.
"He is no longer in the hospital and is finally growing well".
Stem cells were created using a bio-printer to replace the damaged ones in the heart valves and blood vessels and to fill the gaps between the two heart chambers.
Artificial tissue has been used before to improve heart functions in babies, but there have also been cases where the procedure fails, and children need more operations during growth.
Professor Caputo hopes that clinical testing of these unique patches will take place in the next two years, after successful laboratory research.
The stem cell patch trial offers hope to patients like Louie from Wales, who has a number of congenital heart defects.
The XNUMX-year-old from Cardiff had his first open-heart operation with Professor Caput just two weeks after birth, then again aged four to replace the material that fixed his heart.
But because the materials aren't completely biological, they can't keep up with the growth and he needed new surgeries.
Because the patient's immune system can reject the materials used to fix the heart, they can leave scars that can lead to other complications.
A child may therefore have to undergo the same heart operation more than once during their childhood - around 200 repeat operations for congenital heart defects are carried out each year in the UK.
Lui hopes this shift will mean fewer surgeries.
"I don't like going to surgeries," he said.
Dr. Stephen Minger, an expert in stem cell biology and director of SLM Blue Sky Innovation LST, is delighted with the research.
"Most of the studies I'm aware of, in adults with cardiac dysfunction, show only minimal therapeutic benefit from stem cell infusion,"
"I'm happy that the clinical team will continue to do a clinical trial that should tell us whether this was a one-off success," he said.
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