In a case so rare it has no medical name -- but is being described only as “a floating heart,” -- a Florida woman’s heart was found to be shifting around in her body. Doctors found it stuck in her rib cage under her kidney.
According to news reports, the 35-year-old woman’s right lung had been removed long ago, leaving space for her heart in which to wander around.
Having never seen the condition before, physicians were at a loss to come up with a treatment. One doctor said the patient was the only person in the world with the disorder.
The treatment? Breast implants!
Robert Rey, M.D. of Dr. 90210 fame shows a breast
implant
(Photo, courtesy of Dr. Rey.)
It required a four and one-half hour operation, but breast implants -- used in the standard breast augmentation procedure -- filled the space where the lung used to be and holds the heart in the correct position.
“Clever idea, actually,” says Robert Kotler, M.D., a board certified Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon. “The chest surgeons used the breast implants as a large-space ‘filler’.”
Editor’s note: Dr. Kotler is one half of the Tuck ‘n’ Stitch bloggers.
