Patients are looking for alternatives to invasive heart surgery, and a new study has shown promising results for 3D printed 'mini-hearts'
Elle Pendrick had the first of her five open-heart surgeries at just three days old. (ABC News: Courtney Barrett Peters)
Elle Pendrick has spent many sleepless nights in intensive care, attempting to fall asleep to the incessant beeping of the very machines keeping her alive.
The 41-year-old was born with complex congenital heart disease and has endured five open-heart surgeries in her lifetime and many more cardiac catheters and procedures.
Born in Wagga Wagga, in the New South Wales Riverina, she had to be air-lifted to Sydney to have her first major heart surgery at just three days old – it would be another three, long, exhausting days before she could be cuddled by her own mother.
For the now Canberra-based Ms Pendrick, the prospect of a sixth open heart surgery is imminent.
Ms Pendrick has spent her fair share of time in hospital receiving treatment for her heart condition. (ABC News: Courtney Barrett Peters)
Each time she undergoes the complex procedure, she's forced to put her life on hold for about six months at a time while her bones heal from repetitive sternotomies.
"It impacts every aspect of your life from being able to work full-time or being able to even cook or clean for yourself some days," Ms Pendrick said.
"It impacts my husband, it impacts my family – we have to travel to Sydney, it's quite costly.
"You have to take at least six months out of your life to be able to really go through it, recover, build back up in the workforce, to work full-time, and then feel better than you did before the surgery," she said.
Every time Ms Pendrick has to go into surgery, the impacts are felt across her family network. (ABC News: Courtney Barrett Peters)
While the Canberra woman has learnt how to better prepare for the unavoidable, complicated surgery, there's been promising news about a less invasive option.
"Having keyhole surgery, not only is the recovery time so much shorter, but also the pain and the recovery is much, much easier," she said.
"The fatigue can be overwhelming, so, having something that is not invasive and being able to just keep you on your feet and keep you going for as long as possible is an incredible opportunity for all of us."
The creation of 'mini hearts'
New research from scientists at the Heart Research Institute is hoping to offer an alternative to the invasive surgery.
Lead researcher Dr Carmine Gentile has created what he calls "mini hearts", a 3D printed patch using a patient's own stem cells, which can be placed over damaged areas of a person's heart.
An animated display of one of the researchers' 3D printed patches and how it would be placed onto a heart. (Supplied: Heart Research Institute.)
The method, reported in a study published in the journal 'Biofabrication', is yet to be tested on humans, but it's hoped it would see the recovery time of people requiring major heart surgery reduce dramatically.
"The research that we conducted over the past 15 years show that at least in pre-clinical testing it is safe and is also able to improve how the heart pumps," Dr Gentile said.
"We showed more recently that the patch is elastic enough to be folded and then transplanted using, hopefully keyhole procedures."
Dr Gentile said he needs more funding to take the technology from "bench to bedside" in clinical trials, to hopefully offer a safer alternative to major heart surgeries, and heart transplants.
He estimates the cost of the lab-grown patch to be about $100,000, with the cost of a transplant averaging approximately $140,000 in Australia – but upwards of $1 million in countries overseas.
"Our technology hopefully is going to create a cheaper but also faster solution for these patients given the fact we can create a patch within three and six months," he said.
"The reality is that the majority of [patients] are dying waiting for a heart transplant. They're basically waiting on average two years in order to be eligible to receive a heart transplant."
Dr Gentile said more than 10,000 Australians are diagnosed with heart failure every year, but only about 120 hearts on average become available for those on the heart transplant waiting list.
Dr Carmine Gentile holding up one of the 3D printed patches. (Supplied: Heart Research Institute)
'Moving the dial, albeit slowly'
Cardiology professor and director of the Victorian Heart Hospital Steve Nicholls was not involved in the study, but said the research advancement was "quite intriguing".
"Why this study is important is because it uses a number of techniques that really increase the elasticity or the flexibility of those cells," Professor Nicholls said.
"And that's important because if you think about it, the patch is going on the surface of a curved heart, and that heart's beating a lot. So we need those cells to be really resilient, and here is one potential way to increase that resilience."
Professor Stephen Nicholls is director of the Victorian Heart Institute at Monash University. (Supplied)
He does, however, concede it still has a long way to go before patients could benefit from it.
"It's going to need a lot of research to move that anywhere near the patient setting, but it goes to show that we are moving the dial, albeit slowly," Professor Nicholls said.
"It's a little bit like going to the moon. You've got to incrementally, kind of add bits and pieces to get the rocket there.
"I think it just goes to show another example of where Australia is leading in the way of heart research. It's the leading cause of death in this country, we need better solutions, and here you see one small step today towards improving heart outcomes in the future."