Transplanted child, heart surgeon Pace: ‘The situation was dire, there was nothing else we could do.’

Rome, 18 February (LaPresse) – The condition of the two-year-old boy admitted to Monaldi Hospital in Naples ‘was very serious. Unfortunately, we had to acknowledge this. We could not do otherwise’. This was stated to LaSalute by LaPresse by Carlo Pace Napoleone, director of the School of Paediatric Cardiac Surgery and Congenital Heart Disease at the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital in Turin, one of the members of the Heart Team who today in Naples ruled out the possibility of a second heart transplant for the child admitted to intensive care, who had undergone surgery for the first time on 23 December. Pace has performed around a hundred paediatric heart transplants. ‘We decided not to proceed further, concluding that there was nothing else we could do. It’s a shame.’ The specialist said it was not possible to accurately estimate the chances of success of a second operation, but “we are talking about a very small range. We had an honest meeting with our colleagues: nothing was hidden. Our colleagues presented the clinical picture and the latest tests, and it emerged that there had been a massive cerebral haemorrhage, which had worsened. This puts the brain at risk if another operation is performed.” ‘The extracorporeal circulation required for a heart transplant,’ Pace explains, ‘requires complete anticoagulation, and this would have worsened the brain situation, with the likelihood of another massive haemorrhage.’ A fatal problem. The organ that had fuelled hope in recent hours will therefore go “to one of the other two compatible children on the list who are in an emergency situation. Children who are not patients at my hospital,” Pace pointed out. The cardiac surgeon confides that he is very distressed. “Situations like these are rare, fortunately. Having to share this decision with my colleagues helps, but I saw the despair in their eyes, the awareness that they had done everything they could to save a little life without succeeding,” he said as he returned to Turin. A very sad ending to a story that will have to be clarified by the ongoing investigation.