3 yıl önce

US man who got first pig heart transplant dies two months after surgery

Doctors didn’t give an exact cause of David Bennett's death, saying only that the 57-year-old Maryland resident's condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier.

AP

Prior attempts at such transplants have failed largely because patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ.

The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment.

David Bennett, 57, who died on March 8, had received his transplant on January 7, the hospital that carried out the surgery said on Wednesday.

Doctors didn’t give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier.

"After it became clear that he would not recover, he was given compassionate palliative care. He was able to communicate with his family during his final hours," the University of Maryland Medical System said in a statement.

Bennett's son praised the hospital for offering the last-ditch experiment, saying the family hoped it would help further efforts to end the organ shortage.

“We hope this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end,” David Bennett Jr. said in a statement released by the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Significant surgery

Doctors for decades have sought to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants.

Bennett, a handyman from Hagerstown, Maryland, was a candidate for this newest attempt only because he otherwise faced certain death — ineligible for a human heart transplant, bedridden and on life support, and out of other options.

Prior attempts at such transplants — or xenotransplantation — have failed largely because patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ.

This time, the Maryland surgeons used a heart from a gene-edited pig: scientists had modified the animal to remove pig genes that trigger the hyper-fast rejection and add human genes to help the body accept the organ.

Bennett survived significantly longer with the gene-edited pig heart than one of the last milestones in xenotransplantation — when Baby Fae, a dying California infant, lived 21 days with a baboon's heart in 1984.

The need for another source of organs is huge. More than 41,000 transplants were performed in the US last year, a record — including about 3,800 heart transplants.

But more than 106,000 people remain on the national waiting list.

From Bennett's experience, "we have gained invaluable insights learning that the genetically modified pig heart can function well within the human body while the immune system is adequately suppressed,” said Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the Maryland university’s animal-to-human transplant programme.

Pigs have long been used in human medicine, including pigskin grafts and implantation of pig heart valves. But transplanting entire organs is much more complex than using highly processed tissue.

SOURCE: TRTWorld and agencies