ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 15, 1996 TAG: 9611150056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MIAMI
SOURCE: Associated Press
It was a little miracle, but that's all Cheyenne Pyle needed.
The 90-minute-old baby with a defective heart was given a new one in a remarkable operation, becoming what is believed to be the youngest heart transplant recipient in the nation.
``She looks real good today,'' her mother, Alberta Pyle, said Thursday as she stroked her baby's bare pink foot. Inches away, a line of ugly-as-Frankenstein staples pierce the girl's tiny chest, where a new heart the size of a golf ball was beating strong.
The newborn has an 80 percent chance of survival, thanks to prenatal diagnosis of a shriveled heart chamber, tissue-typing of the baby in her mother's womb, a quick donor match, a skillful surgical team and good luck.
``She's not but that big, and she's made it already,'' said Pyle, holding her hands less than 2 feet apart to gauge her daughter's length.
When Cheyenne was delivered by Caesarean section Sunday morning, Pyle said, ``I just wanted her to keep crying and crying just so that I knew she was alive.''
At that point, the donor heart was elsewhere in Florida, still a Lear jet flight away from Jackson Children's Hospital, where more than 35 people had been assembled in three surgical teams.
``We just got lucky that we got the heart,'' Pyle said.
With the replacement heart in transit, Cheyenne's body temperature was lowered to 52 degrees.
The chilling prepared her for the crucial 50-minute period when surgeons implanted the new heart. Brain damage sets in if the clock runs past 60 minutes. In an unreal state of suspended animation, there was no heart beating and no blood circulating through her 19 1/2-inch body.
Once the heart was in, a heart-lung machine restored blood flow, and her temperature was increased again over 40 minutes.
The surgery began when she was just 90 minutes old. Five hours and four minutes into the world, Cheyenne had a new heart beating in her chest.
Her congenital condition, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, affects about 150,000 children a year in the United States. Left untreated, an artery closes and cuts the body's blood supply within a day or so.
In order to survive, Cheyenne had to have a transplant or a three-operation procedure ending at age 2.
Cheyenne's condition was detected with an ultrasound after Pyle went into premature labor when she was 35 weeks pregnant. The defect was confirmed with a fetal echocardiogram.
The family and doctors decided to put Cheyenne on a transplant waiting list at 36 weeks. They had a five-week window for surgery, but the tissue match came a week later.
``That's a very quick time frame to find a heart,'' said Dr. Lee Ann Pearse, Jackson's transplant program director.
The youngest transplant recipient before this had surgery beginning at three hours, according to Mark Sampson at the United Network for Organ Sharing, checking records through 1994, the most recent available.
Her parents are still waiting for their first chance to hold Cheyenne in their arms, most likely next week. The baby, weighing 7 pounds, 9 ounces at birth, may go home in about three weeks.
Looking ahead, Pyle is thinking about where to put the crib and how to explain things to Cheyenne's brother and sister. But she isn't worried about her daughter's chest scar.
``It'll go away, and she'll never remember any of this.''
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Alberta Pyle kisses the hand of her daughterby CNBCheyenne, with dad Stephen in the background on Thursday. color.