Light-Activated Implant May Cut Heart Surgeries in Babies

For babies with a heart defect, implanting a ‘shunt‘ is vital. A new light-expanding shunt could reduce the need for multiple heart surgeries as the baby grows.

Understanding Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome

Hypoplastic left heart syndrome occurs when the left side of the heart remains severely underdeveloped and thus cannot support blood circulation throughout the body. Consequently, without treatment, doctors cannot save a baby born with this defect.

One of the essential steps of this treatment involves connecting the aorta to the main pulmonary artery so that the right side of the heart can supply blood flow to the lungs. To achieve this, surgeons perform the connection through open-heart surgery, implanting a polymer tube known as a shunt. Additionally, this approach enables an effective and targeted treatment.

As the baby grows, wider shunts are needed, requiring up to four additional surgeries, each posing risks and stress.

Introducing the Innovative Light-Activated Shunt

This is where the new experimental shunt plays a role. Assistant Professor Christopher Rodell and his team at Drexel University in Philadelphia developed the shunt, which has inner walls lined with a hydrogel made of polymer molecules surrounded by water.

How the Light-Activated Shunt Works

Under normal conditions, the thickness of this gel remains unchanged. However, when exposed to blue light, the polymer molecules crosslink and contract, expelling the water.

The inner wall contracts and thins, expanding the shunt’s diameter. Longer light exposure increases this effect, allowing more blood flow and removing the need for replacement.

The team could use a thin fiber optic cable to apply blue light via an artery near the armpit, avoiding open-heart surgery.

In lab tests, scientists expanded a shunt’s diameter by 40% from 3.5 to 5 millimeters, nearing the size of the largest shunts used in infants. They plan to test it on a mock circulatory system and possibly on animals next.

Children aren’t just tiny adults; they continue to grow, says Rodell. That’s something we need to consider in biomaterials, how that graft will behave over time.

Ongoing Research into Expandable Heart Valves

Scientists from Boston Children’s Hospital and the University of Minnesota are creating heart valves that grow with the baby, and other teams are exploring similar solutions.

Graduate student Akari Seiner will present a paper on the Drexel study at the American Chemical Society’s fall meeting.

Read the original article on: New Atlas

Read more: Maglev Heart Made of Titanium Now Operating in a Living Patient