born surgeon who performed Clark's original transplant, advised surgeons during the Feb. 20 operation. He said he was delighted that the girl's heart had recovered so well. "Her (original) heart recovered almost completely," he told BBC Radio. "It is now a normal heart. This is a very happy ending." Medical experts said the operation was an important development in treating people suffering from cardiomyopathy, whereby the heart becomes inflamed and functions poorly. "Surgeons like Magdi Yacoub have thought for some time that if a heart is failing because of acute inflammation, it might be able to recover if rested," said Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation. "This seems to be exactly what has happened in this case. The piggyback heart allowed the patient's own heart to take a rest." He said the modern approach to Clark's problem would be to install a temporary mechanical device which could be removed after a few months, but that such a method had not been available 10 years ago. "This is a great example of how a pioneering and novel approach to a medical problem can lead to surprising results that tell us a lot about how some heart diseases progress," he said.
