News Boy is world"s first to survive being born with heart outside his body

[Luke Skywalker]

Boy is world"s first to survive being born with heart outside his body

Boy is world's first to survive being born with heart outside his body

When Ryan Marquiss was born with his heart outside of his body, doctors didn’t expect him to survive.

It is an incredibly rare condition and usually babies are stillborn or die within three days.

His heart also hadn’t developed and so he only had half a heart – a combination of defects which is so rare that Ryan is the only one of his kind in the world.

Ryan Marquiss, with his sister Ainsley, has amazed doctors with his survival after being born with his heart outside of his body

Other images (a bit disgusting)
http://www.big-wife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/3195c074666_306x423.jpg

http://www.big-wife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/f7bfc8ec155_306x423.jpg

 

[N_Molson]

Nice work of surgery. :thumbup:

 

[Scruce]

I saw this on the Daily Mail the other day, the pictures were a bit unsettling so I closed the tab. Now it's here.

Good to see that he survived, though. :thumbup:

 

[Felipi1205]

Wow! This is really incredible!!

 

[RisingFury]

I don't find those images to be particularly unsettling...

I hope he goes on to have a normal life and dies of old age.

 

[Izack]

Wow! Successful complicated surgery on one so young...I'm amazed.

 

[Artlav]

Does anyone else find his head disproportionally large?

 

[N_Molson]

Given the problems he had at birth, I wouldn't be surprised he experience some growth anomalies too... Bah, with proper hormonal treatement, that can probably be fixed with time...

 

[Ark]

Very impressive.

I wonder how much it cost. Good luck insuring that kid when the company knows they'll have to pay for a heart transplant and probably a lifetime supply of medications and treatments.

 

[Eccentrus]

pretty much a testament of how far biomedical science and surgical technologies have gone, if he lived up at least until 15 y.o. that would be such a huge success, since most children with severe congenital problems oftenly never got the chance to live longer than that. The probability of him living through old age would need the application of an artificial heart AFAIK.

 

[Codz]

Very impressive.

I wonder how much it cost. Good luck insuring that kid when the company knows they'll have to pay for a heart transplant and probably a lifetime supply of medications and treatments.

Why do you say that?

 

[Suzy]

Medicine going too far in this case, in my view. What sort of a life is he going to have, with a future heart transplant to "look forward" to? He's already had to endure more operations than most people would have in a lifetime.

 

[FADEC]

To those who complain:

The doctors had no other choice. They have the assignment to safe life and health. If they did not do anything, they would miss their jobs.

We already had such thinking to get rid of troublesome and expensive disabled (and old) persons 67 years ago...

 

[Tommy]

I'd rather look forward to a heart transplant than push daisies - perhaps he feels the same.

 

[Ghostrider]

Medicine going too far in this case, in my view. What sort of a life is he going to have, with a future heart transplant to "look forward" to? He's already had to endure more operations than most people would have in a lifetime.

Beats the alternative. In any case, how are we exactly supposed to learn how to treat people if we adopt the "meh, too expensive, pull the plug" philosophy?

Seriously, sooner or later we'll be considering euthanasia for the common cold. Health costs, you know...

 

[Suzy]

To those who complain:

The doctors had no other choice. [...]

One of the parents said they "wanted to let nature take its course ..." Obviously, with medical intervention, it didn't, otherwise he would have died within a few days, which seems to have been the fate of previous similar cases ("usually babies are stillborn or die within three days"); why go to all the effort to save this one?

 

[Eccentrus]

One of the parents said they "wanted to let nature take its course ..." Obviously, with medical intervention, it didn't, otherwise he would have died within a few days, which seems to have been the fate of previous similar cases ("usually babies are stillborn or die within three days"); why go to all the effort to save this one?

Because we can! we went with all the efforts to make the measles virus went extinct in the wild, we went through all the efforts to make new vaccines every day, "the natural way" would be for people to have 10 children with only 2 survives in adulthood, want to go back that way?

---------- Post added at 07:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 AM ----------

hell, if it's not for antibiotics, I wouldn't be even here right now typing, I would be joining the myriads of children who died of infection because of my poor immune system, and this kind of medical interventions is what actually increases the life expectation in the last 200 years, and we hope to extend that, even in the most unlikely cases.

 

[FADEC]

One of the parents said they "wanted to let nature take its course ..." Obviously, with medical intervention, it didn't, otherwise he would have died within a few days, which seems to have been the fate of previous similar cases ("usually babies are stillborn or die within three days"); why go to all the effort to save this one?

The doctors can't let that happen because it's against their assignment and codex. Plus euthanasia still is illegal in such cases I think. And with reason. Because their son might have a slightly different point of view...

Doctors and the corresponding sciences are there to safe life, not to let end it while watching.

 

[Codz]

One of the parents said they "wanted to let nature take its course ..." Obviously, with medical intervention, it didn't, otherwise he would have died within a few days, which seems to have been the fate of previous similar cases ("usually babies are stillborn or die within three days"); why go to all the effort to save this one?

I'm pretty sure that if your genetics screwed you over, then you'd want someone to help you.

 

[Suzy]

I'm pretty sure that if your genetics screwed you over, then you'd want someone to help you.

If I'd been born like him - then, no.

---------- Post added at 11:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:22 AM ----------

The doctors can't let that happen because it's against their assignment and codex. Plus euthanasia still is illegal in such cases I think. And with reason. Because their son might have a slightly different point of view...

Doctors and the corresponding sciences are there to safe life, not to let end it while watching.

That's going beyond any rationality to save a life.