A team of cardiac surgeons from the University Children's Hospital in Kraków, in cooperation with the best specialists from all over Poland, have implanted a MELODY-Medtronic biological pulmonary valve into a 5 year old patient. The operation has been performed in a state-of-the-art hybrid operating theatre, funded by the Radio ZET Foundation.

The aim of the operation was to introduce the valve into the pulmonary artery through the right ventricle. The procedure took 2.5 hours. The doctors were under a tremendous amount of pressure, as the more time they took, the less likely they were to succeed.

The team consisted of cardiac surgeons from the University Children's Hospital in Kraków, along with Prof. Tomasz Moszura (Łódź) and Prof. Marcin Demkow (Warsaw). "The procedure posed a high level of difficulty due to the patients weight: this is the first time in the history of medicine when a valve as implanted into the heart of such a small child," Prof. Moszura explained.

Until now, these operations were performed chiefly on adults and – extremely rarely – on adolescents, with the smallest patient weighing over 16 kilograms. Meanwhile, the 5 year old female patient from Kraków weighed only 12 kilograms. She was born with a congenital heart defect, and although she was operated on very early to address this problem, she suffered from severe pulmonary arterial hypertension. Despite undergoing yet another procedure, her life was still in danger.

The hybrid technique of pulmonary valve implantation was the child's only hope, though the procedure was extremely dangerous. It required incredible precision and vast experience. "We wouldn't be able to perform this procedure if we didn't have a  modern hybrid operating room at our disposal," said Prof. Janusz Skalski, Head of the Cardiac Surgery Clinic in Kraków. "To date, no one has dared to perform this kind of operation under such conditions and on such a small patient. This shows how many things are possible with modern medical technology."

source of Polish text: University Children's Hospital in Kraków