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OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (KOCO) — Doctors at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital performed the state’s first partial heart transplant, giving one-year-old Angelica Moreno-Roman a chance at a brighter future after being born with a rare heart defect.
“She’s always been a pretty happy girl. I feel like you wouldn’t be able to tell she had a heart surgery,” said Angelica’s mother, Jeneliz Moreno-Roman.
Angelica, who recently celebrated her 1st birthday, was born with truncus arteriosus, a rare condition where only one artery forms instead of two. At just 2 days old, she underwent her first heart surgery.
“She was supposed to have her second surgery around two years old, but she got sick with the rhinovirus at four months old, and that’s when they found her aorta was leaking,” Moreno-Roman said.
In April, Dr. Harold Burkhart, director of the pediatric cardiothoracic surgical program at OU Health Oklahoma Children’s, performed the partial heart transplant, replacing Angelica’s failing heart valves with living valves from a donor.
“We’ve put two valves in a baby that typically would require multiple heart surgeries through life as that child grew, and I’m hoping that she won’t have these anymore,” Burkhart said.
He explained the benefits of using living tissue valves instead of mechanical ones.
“If we pull a valve off a shelf, a mechanical valve, it wouldn’t grow. But if you can get a tissue valve that’s donated, that their body doesn’t reject, and you put them on medicines that help with that, then in theory, that valve will grow like a heart grows with them,” Burkhart said.
Today, Angelica is thriving.
“Yeah, she’s very curious, as you can see,” Moreno-Roman said, as Angelica grabbed her hair.
Angelica loves Elmo and spending time with her big brother.
“My hope for her, of course, is for her to grow and be the bright baby girl that she is. We’re hoping that she doesn’t need any more surgeries in the future since those valves will grow with her,” Moreno-Roman said.
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