British surgeons have performed the world's first operation using a tiny umbrella-like device to mend a hole in the inner wall of a patient's heart.

The new technique could save the lives of many heart-attack patients who would otherwise die. About 4,000 people a year in this country suffer an attack with an acute myocardial rupture, where a hole appears in the inner wall dividing the right and the left heart chambers.

The hole allows blood to flow from the high-pressure left chamber into the low-pressure right one. Without immediate care, 95 per cent of the patients suffer severe heart failure and die.

Traditionally the only medical intervention, for those patients who are fit enough, has been open-heart surgery, where a patch is stitched over the hole, known as the ventricular septum. But this carries a 50 per cent mortality rate because the operation often leads to other holes appearing in the muscle.

The pioneering operation was carried out on a 75-year-old former civil servant, John Hall, at King's College Hospital in south London three months ago. Cardiothoracic surgeon Olaf Wendler, who operated with interventional cardiologist Jonathan Hill, decided to try the new procedure because this type of rupture has 'been one of the great unsolved problems in heart surgery. There was so little we could do for these patients. We thought the new device - an occluder, which has been used to close a hole in the heart in children - might work better than trying to patch it up. Open-heart surgery puts a big strain on the heart, and you are sewing a patch on to muscle that is very soft and has deteriorated. With this, the umbrella seals up the hole and doesn't put the muscle under new strain.'

Hall, from Ashford, Kent, went into King's College after a heart attack last March and was given six days to regain some strength. He was then taken to an operating theatre and put on a heart-lung machine to relieve pressure on his heart and circulate his blood during surgery.

First Wendler carried out a coronary bypass to restore the normal blood supply to the heart. A tiny umbrella-like occluder device just over 10mm long was placed through a surgical incision in the right chamber. The surgeon was able to see the hole and guide the device through it. He then opened up two 'umbrellas' on either side of the hole, which attached themselves to its edges.

Hall, who is recuperating at home, said: 'Before this, I hadn't been to a GP for 40 years. The first I knew of it was that I felt a bit grotty and started to feel shivery inside. Now I feel really well.'

Wendler has permission from the hospital ethical committee to perform the procedure on four other patients as part of a trial before it can be given the go-ahead for regular use.