Over fifty cardiac transplants to children in Córdoba exceed
The birth of a child with heart problems can be difficult for parents, but luckily science and medicine advance to help us to take it better. For example, at the beginning of this year the Reina Sofía Hospital in Córdoba, exceeded fifty patients with heart transplants. All a hope that comes from the hand of this pioneering center.
It was in 1992 when the toilets of this Cordovan hospital carried out the first heart transplant to a child who occurred in Spain and since then 59 interventions of this type have already been carried out, one of them was also a milestone in the history of our country: the graft practiced on the smallest baby, with only eight days, It was in 1998.
Advances in heart medicine
These news fill with joy because, although it is about diseases that we can do little to avoid, these advances in heart medicinethey mean a halo of hope for families whose children are born with this kind of problems, or children of sick mothers.
In fact, it was also in this hospital that the first Spanish baby was born to a mother whose heart had been transplanted before (in 2002), and in those the first artificial heart of Andalusia was implanted to an 18-month-old baby as a bridge to a future transplant, this time the operation was in 2009.
With all Queen Sofia Hospital of Córdoba is a reference center at national level for the children's heart transplants, and is one of the Spanish health centers that stands out for carrying out heart transplants to babies and newborn babies.
Heart transplants in children
The increase in heart transplants is good news, but we must not forget the difficulties that this kind of interventions They carry with them. And is that the operation is always the last alternative because it is better to treat the child earlier with other less invasive treatments.
Once it is decided to carry out the operation, the main difficulty lies in find organs: they should be from donors of weight and height similar to the child who will receive them, and this is not easy to find since, luckily, few children die a year. Likewise, the procedure is very difficult, because the small size of the child joins the difficulty of the organ that is being treated.
Congenital heart disease
The majority of operations to carry out heart transplants are due to dilated cardiomyopathy and congenital pathologies. Regarding the latter, it is scarcely talked about on a day-to-day basis, but the truth is that, as the NGO Menudos Corazones remind us, the data speak of an average of eight affected children per thousand live births. And, although today thanks to medical advances the survival percentages are around 95 percent, "social support and the development of channels that improve the situation of sick children and their families continues to be essential".
The congenital heart diseases are those diseases of the heart that are present from birth and correspond to a disorder of the development of the heart produced especially in the first three months of pregnancy or to injuries in the uterus of the already formed heart. Nowadays advances in prenatal diagnosis have facilitated a great improvement in the care of these children.
Angela. R. Bonachera
