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First time in history: person receives heart transplant from a pig
An intervention unprecedented worldwide, according to the University of Maryland School of Medicine, was performed by a team of American surgeons who undertook the successful heart transplant from a genetically modified pig to a human.
This Friday, in the operation carried out, it was demonstrated for the first time that an animal heart can continue beating in a human without immediate rejection.
David Bennett, who was the person who received this transplant, agreed to undergo the Eight-hour operation in Baltimore, after learning that his body was unfit for a human transplant.
The 57-year-old Maryland resident is under medical surveillance to monitor the functioning of this new organ. With his original heart, it was reported that he suffered from serious heart disease in addition to arrhythmias.
Bennett, the day before his operation, assured that he had two options, die or undergo surgery for said transplant. He insisted that he wants to continue living. He was sure it was a shot in the dark, but this was his last option.
The transplant was a new life expectancy for Bennett
In recent months, Bennett has been in bed while hooked up to a machine that helped him survive. The patient with great hope, said that he looked forward to getting out of that bed, after his recovery.
Emergency authorization for surgery on New Year's Eve was granted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This would be the last chance for a patient who was not suitable for a regular transplant.
The director of the medical center's transplant program, Bartley Griffith, was commissioned to perform the pig transplant on David Bennett. He assured that this was a completely innovative surgery and is an approach to solving the shortage of organs.
He also added that they are in cautious surveillance of the case, also ensuring their optimism about this first surgical operation in the world, which will provide a new and important option for patients in the future.
In addition, he gave a brief explanation of the transplanted heart. He indicated that this new organ creates pressure and beats. Thus ensuring that this is your heart.
How does the heart work?
It looks and works as the human heart normally does, but they do not know what will happen tomorrow, since there has been no other similar case in history.
Regarding the historic operation, the institution gave him its facilities to carry it out, the doctor reported in a statement.
From the institution they detailed that, "This organ transplant demonstrated for the first time that a genetically modified animal heart can function like a human heart without immediate rejection by the body."
The pig who was in charge of making the organ donation, was part of a herd that underwent a process of genetic modification to exclude a gene that produces a sugar that would have caused a strong immune response, and cause disapproval of the organ.
The modification was made by the biotechnology company Revivicor, which also provided the pig used in a successful kidney transplant in a brain-dead patient in New York last October.
The heart was kept in a machine to protect it before surgery.
In addition, the team used a new drug along with conventional ones, to avoid rejection, to suppress the immune system.
The new drug is an experimental compound. Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, was in charge of its manufacture.
This operation is reportedly known as "xenotransplantation" or "xenoimplantation". This means a transplant of cells, organs from one special to another, and tissues, such as those carried out from pigs to humans, today.
This technique is used so that recipient patients have a "temporary" organ that helps them extend the time to receive a human organ.
It is a good option that prevents them from remaining in constant risk, while they remain on the long waiting list, to receive the due operation.
Kidney transplant
In October 2021, a group of scientists managed to temporarily couple a pig kidney to a human body. As a consequence, they observed that it started to work.
At this moment they realized that they were witnessing a small advance in the quest for several decades, in the one to use at some point the animal organs in transplants to save human lives.
The kidney for this experiment came from an animal genetically engineered to remove that sugar and prevent an attack from the immune system.
Surgeons used the body of a deceased person for two days to follow up the procedure.
They were tasked with fixing the pig's kidney to a pair of large blood vessels. The kidney automatically did the job what it was supposed to do, filter the waste and produce urine, without causing any kind of rejection.
