Complex heart surgery for 8-year-old Amari
Eight-year-old Amari is originally from Angola, and his great passion is playing football. However, after a fracture of his lower leg failed to heal, he developed inflammation of the bone marrow, known as osteomyelitis, as well as a non-union of the fracture (pseudoarthrosis).
With the support of Friedensdorf International, Amari came to Germany in spring 2025. There, he received trauma and orthopaedic treatment for his lower leg, which made it possible to save the limb. During the examinations, however, doctors also discovered a complex congenital heart defect by chance. Amari was examined by numerous specialists, who concluded that he needed a heart valve replacement. However, the complexity of the procedure made the operation too risky. In addition, a valve replacement would have prevented Amari from returning to Angola, as the necessary medical follow-up care would not have been available there.
Friedensdorf International then contacted the Leipzig Heart Center. “We have worked with the Leipzig Heart Center many times in the past. The children have always received excellent care and treatment there. We therefore had great hopes and contacted Professor Dähnert. We are very grateful that the Heart Center took on Amari’s case, examined him free of charge and was ultimately able to help him,” says Leonie Petrik from the Friedensdorf International coordination office in Berlin.
Examinations at the Leipzig Heart Center revealed that Amari not only had a very rare congenital malformation of the mitral valve — a mitral valve anomaly — but also a rare vascular abnormality: a pulmonary artery aneurysm. “Both the type of mitral valve anomaly, which resulted in grade III mitral regurgitation, and the aneurysm are extremely rare. In my entire professional career, I have never encountered either of these conditions in this form before,” Prof. Martin Kostelka, Chief Physician of Paediatric Cardiac Surgery at the Leipzig Heart Center, comments on the case. Together with Prof. Michael A. Borger, Chief Physician of the University Department of Cardiac Surgery and Medical Director of the Leipzig Heart Center, he operated on the 8-year-old boy. During the procedure, the experienced surgical team managed to achieve what seemed almost impossible.
“During a highly complex open-heart procedure, we were able to reconstruct Amari’s own mitral valve. By placing several individual sutures, we were able to restore the valve’s proper closure without having to replace it with an artificial valve,”
says Prof. Michael A. Borger, Medical Director and Director of the University Department of Cardiac Surgery at the Leipzig Heart Center.
Prof. Kostelka removed the aneurysm of the pulmonary artery root and then reconstructed the pulmonary root. The open-heart procedure was performed using a heart-lung machine. “The operation performed by my colleagues is a true masterpiece of surgical skill. Thanks to them, Amari can now not only return home to his family, but also play football properly again,” adds Prof. Ingo Dähnert, Director of the University Department of Paediatric Cardiology.
Amari recovered quickly after the operation and was transferred to a regular ward just two days after surgery. Following rehabilitation at Friedensdorf International in Oberhausen, he can finally return home.
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