Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5_m_1lsXKE

Little Easton Sinnamon came into the world last year with a broken heart, having six defects in all, that were too severe for doctors to fix.

Easton’s mother, Kaitlyn Sinnamon says, “If we didn’t go the transplant route, he wouldn’t be here today.”

Doctors also determined that Easton had an immune system that wasn’t working.

“We found out that he didn’t have T cells. T cells are something that are produced by the thymus. They helped to fight infection,” Dr. Joseph W. Turek, MD, PhD, MBA, Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Duke University, explains.

Dr. Turek and his team proposed an investigational procedure that had been pioneered at Duke but never performed in humans before – a combination heart transplant and implantation of cultured thymus tissue. Doctors believed the implanted thymus cells would reduce the need for anti-rejection drugs. Kaitlyn says it wasn’t a difficult choice for their family to make, since the thymus implantation posed little risk to their son.

“If you do it and it works, you’re changing how transplants are done worldwide,” Kaitlyn emphasizes.

When Easton was six months old, a donor heart became available. Surgeons also sent thymus tissue from the same donor to a lab for processing. The heart transplant was first.

Dr. Turek adds, “We went back to the operating room two weeks later, and we did the cultured thymic tissue implantation.”

Easton’s doctors and family noticed the difference immediately.

“He was no longer this kind of bluish, grayish color, not getting enough oxygen,” Kaitlyn says.

Easton left Duke Hospital after seven months, growing stronger at home. He is not only celebrating his first birthday, but another one-year milestone.

Kaitlyn mentions, “We call it his heart birthday, his ‘heart-versary’. August 6th was when he received his transplant.”

The heart transplant and thymus tissue implant were cleared by the FDA under an expanded access application. Easton’s mother, Kaitlyn, tells us doctors have just started reducing one of his anti-rejection medications, as doctors initially hoped they would be able to do. The anti-rejection medications can be toxic to organs, especially the kidneys.

Source: https://www.ivanhoe.com/medical-breakthroughs/heart-and-thymus-transplant/