Boy lives 525 days with artificial heart before transplant

(ANSA) - TURIN, MAR 17 - A seven-year-old boy survived for 525 days with an artificial heart in a Turin hospital before having a transplant recently, hospital sources said Wednesday.
    The year and a half on the Berlin Heart machine was the longest ever spell for a patient at the Regina Margherita Hospital.
    The boy is well and has already been discharged.
    Born in Morocco, the boy started to show signs of cardiac insufficiency in summer 2019.
    He flew with his mother to join his father in Liguria and after a brief spell in another hospital was moved to the Regina Margherita in Turin.
    His heart stopped shortly after he went into the cardiac unit there, directed by Dr Michele Grassitelli.
    Shortly afterwards he was given a Berlin Heart and kept growing and learning Italian under the careful gaze of his parents who in the meantime had another child.
    Then, after the 525 days, came the heart transplant carried out by by a team led by Dr Carlo Pace Napoleone..
    He subsequently made a fast and successful recovery. (ANSA).