Man receives genetically modified pig heart in world-first transplant

AP
Daniel Keane11 January 2022

A US man has become the first person in the world to get a heart transplant from a genetically-modified pig.

David Bennett, 57, is recovering in a hospital in Maryland following the seven-hour procedure, doctors said.

A day before his surgery, Mr Bennett said the transplant was “do or die”.

“I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” he said. “I look forward to getting out of bed after I recover.”

The surgery, performed by a team at the University of Maryland Medicine, marks the first pig-to-human heart transplant, a field made possible by new gene editing tools.

If proven successful, scientists hope pig organs could help alleviate shortages of donor organs.

To move ahead with the surgery, the university obtained an emergency authorisation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on New Year’s Eve through its compassionate use programme.

Mr Bennett had already been deemed ineligible for a human transplant due to his poor health.

There are currently around 110,000 Americans waiting for an organ transplant. More than 6,000 patients die each year before getting one, according to organdonor.gov.

“This was a breakthrough surgery and brings us one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis,” Dr Bartley Griffith, who surgically transplanted the pig heart into the patient, said in a statement.

“There are simply not enough donor human hearts available to meet the long list of potential recipients.”

“We are proceeding cautiously, but we are also optimistic that this first-in-the-world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future,” Griffith added.

Pigs are considered a source of potential transplants as their organs are similar to humans. A hog heart at the time of slaughter is approximately the size of an adult human heart.

Other organs from pigs being researched for transplantation into humans include kidneys, liver and lungs.

In October 2021, doctors in New York successfully transplanted a pig’s kidney into a person. However, the recipient was brain dead with no hope of recovery.

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