At the speed of science

Posted at 5:34 PM on July 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Science

This is one of those stories that makes you wonder what the world would be like if everything moved at the speed of science. More so than any other facet of our lives, hope doesn't seem pointless when the subject is science.

The heart can heal itself, researchers have written in a British medical journal.

Ten years ago, doctors transplanted a heart into Hannah Clark, but didn't remove her faulty one because "she also needed a lung transplant, and her doctors wanted to avoid doing two risky transplants at once," Discover Magazine reports.

After 10 years with two blood pumping organs, and cancer caused by rejection drugs she had to take, doctors discovered her old heart is new again.

Says the Associated Press:

Miguel Uva, chairman of the European Society of Cardiology's group on cardiovascular surgery, called Clark's case "a miracle," adding that it was rare for patients' hearts to simply get better on their own.

"We have no way of knowing which patients will recover and which ones won't," Uva said.

But you know some day they will.

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