UK-first heart implant keeps rugby dream alive
Baku, August 28, AZERTAC
A teenage girl has become the first person in the UK to have a dissolvable implant fitted to close a hole in her heart that is around the size of a 10p piece, according to BBC.
Lillie Yale, from Warrington, faced having a permanent metal device, which would have hindered her dream of becoming a professional rugby player.
However, the biodegradable implant will act as a scaffold for Lillie's heart to heal itself over the coming months and years, before fully dissolving and leaving behind no trace.
The procedure was performed on the 14-year-old by surgeons at Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool in June.
It is the first time the device, known as Memosorb, has been used on a patient with an atrial septal defect (ASD) - a hole in the wall that divides the heart's two upper chambers. It is made of a material commonly used in dissolvable stitches.
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