Globally-renowned cardiac surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub
CAIRO - 11 January 2025: Globally-renowned cardiac surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub recently announced a surgical breakthrough in treating heart diseases.
Patients suffering from heart problems may soon be able to install heart valves that grow naturally inside their bodies, which ends the need for repeated surgeries.
This "new living valve" could transform these patients’ lives by eliminating the need for repeated surgeries and reducing the risk of rejection, according to Daily Mail newspaper that reported the story.
The project is being led by Egyptian-British Cardiac professor Sir Magdi Yacoub and his team.
Sir Yacoub told the Sunday Times: ‘I always say nature is the greatest technology. It is so superior to anything we can make. Once something is living - whether that’s a cell, tissue, or [the living valve] - it adapts on its own. Biology is like magic.’
When heart valves become diseased, they may stiffen, or become leaky, increasing the risk of heart failure, stroke, or heart attacks, reported Daily Mail, adding that existing valve replacement options for patients have major drawbacks.
The UK newspaper further highlighted that valves that are taken from cows, pigs or human tissue and implanted in patients could be rejected by the body's immune system.
The project is hailed by British newspapers as significant advance in treating heart diseases.
More than 50 patients are scheduled to receive temporary valves made of fibers in the first phase that act as "temporary structures" that can be implanted and integrated with the body's cells. Over time, these structures dissolve, leaving behind a living valve composed entirely of the patient's own tissue.
According to the Imperial College London, surgery to replace damaged heart valves has been possible for more than 60 years, but the treatment has medical drawbacks with both mechanical and biological valves.
The new approach developed by Sir Magdi Yacoub's team at Harefield and Imperial is more adaptive. "The aim of the concept we have developed is to produce a living valve in the body, which is able to grow with the patient," says Dr Yuan-Tsan Tseng, Professor of Biomaterials at the National Heart and Lung Institute and the Harefield Cardiac Science Centre. The process begins with a “nano-polymer valve,” but made of a biodegradable structure rather than a durable plastic. Once inside the body, the structure attracts cells and gives them instructions to develop, so that the body acts as a bioreactor for the growth of new tissue,” Tseng explains.
“The structure gradually degrades and is replaced by our own tissue,” he adds.
The material used to make the structure is the key innovation, he notes. “It has the ability to attract, host and direct the right cells from the patient’s body, thus facilitating tissue formation and maintaining valve function.”
Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub FRS is Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Founder and Director of Research at the Magdi Yacoub Institute at Harefield Heart Science Centre, Founder and President of the Chain of Hope and Founder and Director of the Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation which created the Aswan Heart Centre.
Born in Egypt and graduated from Cairo University Medical School in 1957 he trained in London and held an Assistant Professorship at the University of Chicago. A former British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery for over 20 years and Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Harefield Hospital from 1969-2001 and Royal Brompton Hospital from 1986-2001, Professor Yacoub established the largest heart and lung transplantation programme in the world at Harefield Hospital where more than 2,500 transplant operations have been performed. He has developed novel operations for several complex congenital heart anomalies.
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