Firezer Haregu, MD: My name is Firezer Haregu. I'm a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Virginia. My current research project is centered on the concept of a partial heart transplantation, which entails taking semilunar valves from donor hearts, which would otherwise go unutilized, and use these valves in order to replace incompetent or dysfunctional valves in pediatric patients who have limited options when it comes to either surgical replacement or transcatheter replacement options for these types of valves.
Pediatric patients currently are limited in the types of valves that they can have replaced surgically or through transcatheter options. This type of valve would be one that would grow with the patient and would allow the patient to not need repeat operations to upsize surgically or transcatheter-replaced valves.
One area for future research in this field is whether patients who receive these live donor valves will need to undergo immunosuppression. We have yet to determine whether these types of valves will have the same immune response that standard heart transplants have. And because we know immunosuppressive medications have side effects, it would be interesting to learn whether these types of valves will actually require the use of immunosuppressive medications.