The first person to receive a heart transplant from a dead pig, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, announced Maryland Hospital on Wednesday that he was performing the surgery.
David Bennett, 57, died Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Doctors did not give an exact cause of death, they just said that his condition had started to deteriorate a few days earlier.
Bennett’s son praised the hospital for offering the latest experiment, saying the family hoped it would help make more efforts to end organ shortages.
“We are grateful for every innovative moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that participated in this historic endeavor,” said David Bennett Jr. in a statement issued by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Hopefully this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end.”
Mark Teske / University of Maryland School of Medicine via AP
For decades, doctors have tried to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Bennett, a textbook writer from Hagerstown, Maryland, was nominated for this new attempt only because he was facing a certain death, ineligible for a human heart transplant, lying in bed and with life support, and beyond. options.
After the Jan. 7 operation, Bennett’s son told The Associated Press that his father knew there was no guarantee it would work.
Dr. Bartley Griffith, who performed 7-hour surgery at Baltimore Hospital, told CBS News that Bennett said, “I don’t want to die … but if I do, you might learn something to help others. “.
Previous attempts at these transplants, or xenotransplants, have largely failed because the bodies of the patients quickly rejected the animal organ. This time, surgeons in Maryland used a heart of a pig edited by genes: the scientists had modified the animal to remove the pig’s genes that trigger hyper-rapid rejection and add human genes to help the body accept the organ. .
At first, the heart of the pig was working, and Maryland Hospital posted periodic updates that looked like Bennett was slowly recovering. Last month, the hospital released a video of him watching the Super Bowl from the hospital bed while working with his physiotherapist.
Bennett survived significantly longer with the genetically engineered pig heart than one of the last milestones in xenotransplantation: when Baby Fae, a dying child in California, lived 21 days with the heart of a baboon in 1984.
“We are devastated by the loss of Mr. Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought to the end,” said Dr. Griffith.
The need for another source of organs is enormous. Last year, more than 41,000 transplants were performed in the United States, a record, including about 3,800 heart transplants. But more than 106,000 people remain on the national waiting list, thousands die each year before receiving an organ, and thousands more are not even added to the list, which is considered too long.
The Food and Drug Administration had allowed the dramatic Maryland experiment under “compassionate use” rules for emergencies. Bennett’s doctors said he had heart failure and an irregular heartbeat, as well as a history of not following medical instructions. It was considered ineligible for a human heart transplant that requires strict use of immunosuppressive drugs, or the remaining alternative, an implanted heart pump.
Doctors have not revealed the exact cause of Bennett’s death. Rejection, infection, and other complications are risks to transplant recipients.
But from Bennett’s experience, “we have gained invaluable knowledge by learning that the genetically modified pig heart can function well within the human body as long as the immune system is properly suppressed,” said Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the University of Maryland. human transplant program.
One next question is whether scientists have learned enough from Bennett’s experience and other recent experiments with genetically engineered pig organs to persuade the FDA to allow a clinical trial, possibly with a kidney-like organ other than immediately. deadly if it fails. .
Last fall, New York University surgeons obtained permission from the families of dead individuals to temporarily connect a genus-edged pig kidney to blood vessels outside the body and watch them work before ending life support. And surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham took it a step further by transplanting a pair of genetically edited pig kidneys into a brain-dead man in a step-by-step trial for an operation they hope to test in living patients. possibly later. course.
Pigs have long been used in human medicine, including pig skin grafts and the implantation of pig heart valves. But transplanting whole organs is much more complex than using highly processed tissue. Genetically edited pigs used in these experiments were provided by Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics, one of several ongoing biotechnology companies to develop suitable pig organs for possible human transplantation.
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