By Lauran Neergaard and Carla K. Johnson -
The Associated Press
The first person to receive a pig heart transplant has died two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the operation said on Wednesday.
David Bennett, 57, died Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Doctors did not explain the cause of death, saying his health began to deteriorate days ago.
Bennett's son praised the hospital for offering his father such an opportunity and hoped the experiment would help future patients.
"We are grateful for every groundbreaking moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that went into this historic effort
," David Bennett Jr. said in a statement released by the University of Maryland, "we hope this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end.
They achieve the first transplant of a pig heart in a terminal patient in Maryland
Jan. 11, 202202:08
Doctors have been trying for decades to use animal organs for life-saving transplants.
Bennett, a native of Maryland, was a candidate because
he faced certain death:
He was unsuitable for a human heart transplant, bedridden and on artificial respiration, and had no other options.
After the Jan. 7 operation, his son told The Associated Press that his father
knew there was no guarantee it would work.
"I was already losing faith."
A Hispanic receives a heart transplant in New York
Feb. 28, 202203:36
Previous attempts at such transplants have largely failed because patients' bodies quickly reject the animal organ.
This time, surgeons in Maryland used a genetically modified pig heart to remove the pig genes that trigger rejection and add human genes.
The pig heart initially worked, and the Maryland hospital posted regular updates on Bennett's slow recovery.
Last month he posted a video of himself watching the Super Bowl from his hospital bed while working with his physical therapist.
[Reveal the results of the historic face and hand transplant]
Bennett survived much longer with the gene-edited pig's heart than Baby Fae, a Californian baby who lasted just 21 days with a baboon's heart in 1984.
Patient David Bennett (right) and Dr. Bartley Griffith. University of Maryland
“We are devastated by the loss.
Bennett proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought to the end," Dr. Bartley Griffith, who performed the operation in Baltimore, said in a statement.
The need for a source of organs for transplantation is enormous.
Last year, a record of more than
41,000 transplants were performed in the United States
, including about 3,800 hearts.
But more than 106,000 people remain on the waiting list, thousands die each year before getting an organ, and thousands more don't even make it onto the list as a long shot.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed the Maryland experiment under "compassionate use" rules for emergency situations.
Bennett's doctors said she had heart failure and an irregular heart rhythm, and a history of failing to follow medical instructions.
He was deemed unsuitable for a human heart transplant, which requires the use of immunosuppressant drugs, or the now available alternative, an implanted heart pump.
Muhammad M. Mohiuddin leads the team that transplanted the pig heart at the University of Maryland Medical Center on January 7, 2022.UMSOM/via REUTERS
[American scientists say they have cured HIV for the first time in a woman]
From Bennett's experience, scientists have gained "invaluable insights that genetically modified pig heart can function well within the human body while the immune system is adequately suppressed," said Dr. animal-to-human transplants from the university.
It remains to be seen whether scientists have learned enough from the Bennett experience and other recent experiments with gene-edited pig organs to convince the FDA to allow a clinical trial, possibly involving an organ such as a kidney, other than immediately. deadly if it fails.
A New York woman is the first in history to be cured of HIV
Feb. 17, 202201:21
Last fall, two New York University surgeons obtained permission from the families of deceased people to temporarily attach a genetically modified pig kidney to blood vessels outside the body and observe its function before ending life support.
And surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham went a step further, transplanting a pair of genetically modified pig kidneys into a brain-dead man, in a step-by-step rehearsal of an operation they hope to test on living patients, possibly this very one. anus.
Pigs have long been used in human medicine, including pig skin grafting and pig heart valve implantation.
But organ transplantation is much more complex than the use of highly processed tissues.
The gene-edited pigs used in these experiments were provided by Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics, one of several biotech companies in the race to develop pig organs suitable for potential human transplantation.