A teenage girl hopes to fulfil her dream of playing professional rugby after becoming one of the first in the UK to have a dissolvable implant fitted to close a hole in her heart.
Lillie Yale, 14, from Warrington, had a biodegradable implant - around the size of a 10 pence piece - fitted to act as a scaffold over her heart. The procedure was performed by surgeons at Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool in June.
How the implant works
The implant, known as Memosorb, is one of the first times the device has been used on a patient with an atrial septal defect (ASD), a hole in the wall that divides the two upper chambers of the heart, in the UK. It is made of biomedical polymers, commonly used in dissolvable stitches.
Dr Salim Jivanji, consultant paediatric cardiologist at Alder Hey, said: “The device looks very similar to a normal existing device that we have on the market. The difference being that it’s made out of a polymer.”
He said with a traditional metal device, tissue would start lining the implant, while Memosorb acts as a “scaffold”. He added: “The body reacts with the structure of the device. It slowly covers it with the lining of the heart, and the polymer starts getting dissolved into carbon dioxide and water within the tissue and slowly disappears completely. I would say, in anywhere between six to 24 months the only thing you'll see is what looks like a normal septum with no hole in it.”
Rugby dream preserved
According to Dr Jivanji, Lillie would not have been able to play rugby if she had a metal implant, as there is a risk it could be dislodged by heavy impact before her heart was fully healed. There is also a risk of mechanical stress to a metal device in the heart. Alder Hey secured a special licence from the medicines regulator to use Memosorb.
Lillie said: “I’m really happy it’s all done now, and it’s amazing to know I was the first person in the UK to have this new type of implant. I’m enjoying doing the things I love and not having to worry about my heart.”
She is now having check ups every couple of months to monitor her progress. Her mum, Becci Nichols, 38, said: “She is healing absolutely perfectly. She's been doing loads. She's back in her rugby full swing, and she did the Pretty Muddy 5k. She's been off to Alton Towers, and she's just getting on with everything now.”
Diagnosis and recovery
Becci was told that Lillie had ASD soon after she was born prematurely at 33 weeks. ASD affects roughly one to two in every 1,000 babies, and can sometimes be detected in adults as smaller holes cause fewer symptoms. Lillie had regular check ups and no symptoms until January 2025, when tests revealed her heart had become enlarged on the right side.
Becci said she was not too worried, as her own mother had discovered she had ASD when she was in her 40s: “I knew what it meant when it said that her heart was enlarged, and I knew how serious it can be. But it was only slightly enlarged, so I didn't worry too much. But I knew it needed rectifying.”
Doctors initially said they would fit Lillie with an implant within two years, but her mother pushed for it to be sooner so the operation did not interrupt her GCSEs. It was only then Lillie was told she would not be able to continue with her sport if she had a traditional metal device put in her heart.
Becci said Dr Jivanji and his team “went above and beyond” to allow Lillie to “continue with her normal life”. She said: “Sometimes you can leave an appointment feeling like someone is simply doing their job, but every member of the interventional cardiology team and nurses on ward 1C who cared for Lillie made us feel that they genuinely wanted the very best for her and for our family. Their kindness, compassion and dedication made an enormous difference to us throughout our journey.”
Dr Jivanji also hailed the team at Alder Hey: “We constantly do really state-of-the-art kind of cases, but these cases require so much discussion, so much understanding...we advance innovation all the time, and it requires a real big team effort.”
