Heart Transplant: Doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life in a medical first (heart transplant surgery). According to a Maryland hospital, the patient is doing well three days after surgery.
Physicians transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch bid to save his life in a medical first. According to a Maryland hospital, the patient is doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery.
While it’s too early to say whether the procedure will work, it’s a significant step forward in the decades-long goal to one day employ animal organs for life-saving transplants. According to doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Centre, the transplant demonstrated that a heart from a genetically modified animal might function in the human body without instant rejection.
A 57-year-old Maryland handyman, David Bennett, was well aware that the experiment had no guarantee of success. Despite this, he was dying and had no other options, according to his son, who told The Associated Press that he was ineligible for a human heart transplant.
I want to live. Either I died, or I did the transplant. A day before the surgery, Bennett remarked, “I know it’s a gamble, but it’s my last resort,” according to a statement released by the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Heart Transplant
Bennett was breathing on his own on Monday, despite being still attached to a heart-lung machine to assist his new heart(After heart transplant). During the coming few weeks, Bennett’s recovery from surgery and physicians’ careful monitoring of his heart’s condition will be necessary.
Because there is a severe shortage of human organs available for transplant, scientists are working to find a way to use animal organs instead. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which supervises the nation’s transplant system, there were just over 3,800 heart transplants in the United States last year, a record number.
Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the Maryland university’s animal-to-human transplant programme, stated, “If this works, there would be an infinite supply of these organs for individuals who are suffering.”
However, previous attempts at such transplants or xenotransplantation have failed because the patients’ bodies quickly rejected the animal organ. In 1984, a dying newborn named Baby Fae survived for 21 days with a baboon heart.
The difference this time was that the Maryland surgeons utilized a heart from a pig that had been gene-edited to remove the sugar in its cells that causes the organ rejection to happen so quickly. Several biotech companies are working on pig organs for human transplantation; the one used in Friday’s procedure came from Revivicor, a United Therapeutics subsidiary.
According to Dr David Klassen, UNOS’ senior medical officer, “may be described as a landmark event.”
Klassen emphasised, however, that this is merely the first stage in determining whether xenotransplantation would work this time.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the surgery under a compassionate use emergency permission, accessible when a patient with a life-threatening condition has no other options.
Karen Maschke, a research scholar at the Hastings Center who is helping develop ethics and policy recommendations for the first clinical trials under a grant from the National Institutes of Health, said it would be critical to share the data gathered from this transplant before it is expanded to more patients.
Without this knowledge, people are rushing into animal-to-human transplants.
Scientists have tinkered with the genomes of pigs instead of monkeys over the years.
Researchers in New York experimented last September that suggested these types of pigs could be helpful for animal-to-human transplants. Doctors briefly implanted a pig’s kidney into the body of a deceased human and watched its function.
According to Dr Robert Montgomery, who led the operation at NYU Langone Health, the Maryland transplant takes their experiment to the next level.
This is a genuinely incredible achievement. “In a statement, he stated. “As a heart transplant recipient who also has a genetic cardiac condition, I am ecstatic about this news and the optimism it provides for my family and other patients who will benefit from this discovery.
The surgery, which took place last Friday at a Baltimore hospital, lasted seven hours. The patient’s heart failure and erratic heartbeat made him ineligible for a human heart transplant or a heart pump, according to Dr Bartley Griffith, who performed the procedure.
Before providing the opportunity to Bennett, Griffith had implanted pig hearts into around 50 baboons over the course of five years.
With this individual, we’re learning a lot every day, Griffith added. So far, we’re pleased with our decision to proceed. And he’s happy, too: a big grin on his face today.
Pig heart valves have been effectively used in people for decades, according to Bennett’s son, who said his father acquired one around a decade ago.
In terms of the heart transplant, David Bennett Jr. remarked, “He recognizes the gravity of what was done, and he fully realizes the value of it.” He might not live, or he might live for a day, or he might live for a few days. We’re in the middle of nowhere, after all.