Girl, 17, suffers brain damage

THE teenage girl who underwent a second heart-lung transplant after the first was botched has suffered severe brain damage , hospital officials said yesterday.

A brain scan early yesterday, less than 24 hours after the second transplant, showed 17-year-old Jesica Santillan’s brain had swelled and was bleeding.

“After the transplant we were all very hopeful,” said Dr Karen Frush, medical director of children’s services at Duke University Medical Centre. But now, “the swelling in her brain is severe, severe to the point we fear it’s irreversible”.

Dr Frush said additional tests were planned to confirm the diagnosis and doctors would try to relieve pressure on Jesica’s brain.

esica was near death after her body began rejecting organs she received in a transplant on February 7 that didn’t match her blood type. Against all odds, a matching donor was found and the second transplant was performed last Thursday morning.

Doctors attributed yesterday’s complication to the amount of time Jesica was connected to life-support machines while she awaited the second transplant, said Mack Mahoney, a leader of fund-raising efforts to pay for Jesica’s care.

Relatives have said her family paid a smuggler to bring them from their small town near Guadalajara, Mexico, to the US so she could get medical care. She spent three years on a transplant waiting list before her first surgery.

In that operation, Dr James Jaggers implanted organs from a donor with type A blood, rather than Jesica’s O-positive, a mistake officials say wasn’t discovered until the surgery was almost over.

The hospital has since added levels of verification for organ compatibility.