Can children with HLH receive a heart transplant?

Yes, they can. In addition to staged surgeries to correct hypoplastic left heart syndrome, the other treatment option for children with HLH is heart transplantation. In this procedure, the child is treated with the drug prostaglandin, which keeps open the ductus arteriosus (the blood vessel that connects the lung arteries to the aorta when the fetus is developing in the mother’s womb and that typically closes shortly after birth) in order to bolster blood flow to the body. Once a donor heart becomes available, the child stops receiving the prostaglandin infusion. During the surgery, the defective heart is removed and the new heart is implanted.