A team of experts led by Dr. Ikenna Omeje, who hails from Nsukka in Enugu State, has performed surgery on Vanellope Hope Wilkins, a seven-year-old girl born with her heart outside her body.
Dr. Omeje is a consultant congenital cardiac surgeon and the Head of Congenital Cardiac Surgery at the East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre, University Hospitals of Leicester, United Kingdom.
Vanellope returned to the University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) NHS Trust for a groundbreaking operation. The team, led by Dr. Omeje, came together during the eight-hour surgery at the East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre (EMCHC), located at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, to reconstruct Vanellope’s chest. The surgery was essential to protect her heart as she continues to grow.
Vanellope was diagnosed in the womb with an incredibly rare condition, ectopia cordis, in which the heart is abnormally located either partially or entirely outside of the chest. Vanellope, the daughter of Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins, weighed three pounds, eight ounces at birth and was delivered by Caesarean section at Glenfield Hospital in November 2017.
Over the past seven years, specialist teams at UHL have worked together to monitor her unique case and plan the first-of-its-kind operation, which took place on April 16, 2025.
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The surgical team included consultant congenital cardiac surgeon Dr. Ikenna Omeje and consultant paediatric surgeon Nitin Patwardhan. They were supported by visiting cardiothoracic surgeon Nagarajan Muthialu from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr. Omeje said: “Vanellope’s case is completely unique and very rare, so we brought our expertise together and combined several different techniques to perform this surgery. I was there seven years ago when Vanellope was born, as part of the team protecting her heart. Since then, we have been waiting for the right opportunity to close the chest and give her heart protection.
“It was a tricky procedure, and it has been a long journey to get to this point, but the sense of satisfaction you get knowing you’ve been successful is very special. I’m just happy to be able to help.”
Dr. Omeje graduated from Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, one of Eastern Europe’s foremost medical schools.
He was subsequently awarded a scholarship by the Slovak government for a PhD programme, which he completed with distinction.
He then completed his postgraduate training at the Slovak Institute of Cardiovascular Disease and the Slovak Children’s Heart Centre.
Following his training, Dr. Omeje worked as a congenital cardiac surgeon at the Slovak Children’s Heart Centre in Bratislava before taking up a senior clinical fellow position at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.
Since his time at GOSH, Dr. Omeje has led many charity missions to Nigeria, helping hospitals establish or revive congenital cardiac services. He has performed hundreds of heart operations on children and adults and mentored local staff in the process.
Dr. Omeje has a keen interest in research and teaching. He is the site principal investigator for OMACp, a multi-centre UK study examining outcomes and risk stratification after cardiac procedures in children with congenital heart disease.
In 2020, he was appointed Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and became a member of the adjunct clinical faculty at the International University of Health Sciences School of Medicine.
He is currently an honorary lecturer at the University of Leicester Medical School.
Dr. Omeje has authored numerous articles in both local and international peer-reviewed journals.
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