The Teenager Whose Heart Implant Will Simply Disappear

Lillie Yale has known about the hole in her heart for almost as long as she can remember. She was diagnosed with an atrial septal defect, a gap in the wall between the heart's two upper chambers, shortly after birth. What changed this year was not the diagnosis. It was the choice she was finally offered for treating it, and the fact that, for the first time in the UK, that choice did not require her to give up rugby.

A device built to disappear

The 14 year old, from Warrington, had faced the prospect of a permanent metal implant to close the hole, the standard treatment for her condition. A rigid device carries a real risk in contact sport, since a heavy impact before the heart has fully healed around it could dislodge it. Instead, surgeons at Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool fitted Lillie with Memosorb, a biodegradable implant roughly the size of a 10 pence piece, made from the same biomedical polymers used in dissolvable stitches. It was the first time the device had been used in the UK on a patient with her specific condition, and Alder Hey secured a special licence from the medicines regulator to carry out the procedure.