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Doctors in Baltimore operate on a pig heart that is inserted into a human patient
Photo: Tom Jemski / dpa
A transplant team in the USA claims to have connected a genetically modified pig heart to a human patient for the first time.
The organ was used in a 57-year-old man with life-threatening heart disease on Friday in a clinic in Baltimore, Maryland, the hospital said on Monday.
The operation took eight hours, according to US media. The transplanted heart has since started work and the patient is fine.
"This organ transplant shows for the first time that a genetically modified animal heart can function like a human heart without the body rejecting it immediately," said the University of Maryland Medical Center. The patient - who was classified as unsuitable for a human donor heart - will continue to be closely monitored over the coming weeks.
"That has never happened before"
"This was a breakthrough operation and brings us one step closer to resolving the organ scarcity," said doctor in charge Bartley Griffith.
The heart works and looks normal, he said, according to the New York Times.
“We're excited, but we don't know what will happen tomorrow.
That has never happened before."
According to the hospital's statement, the patient said it was a life or death decision: "I know it's a shot in the dark, but it's my last chance." He looks forward to recovering and getting out of it Being able to get up in bed.
The high-profile transplant could provide hope for thousands of people in the United States alone who depend on donor organs.
For some time now, scientists have been trying to breed organs in pigs that can be used by humans - in addition to hearts, also kidneys or lungs.
With the medical breakthrough that has now been reported, however, many questions remain unanswered, especially those about the organ's longevity.
In addition, the findings have not yet been published in any specialist magazine.
Last October, it became known that doctors in New York had connected a pig kidney to a brain-dead person for more than two days.
The organ was connected to the bloodstream outside the body for 54 hours and started to work there "almost immediately" and to form the metabolic product creatinine.
At that time, experts spoke of a “further step” in the field of xenotransplantation, that is, the transfer of cells or organs from one species to another.
The history of the development of xenografts is long and marked by rainfall.
The case of Baby Fae, who received a baboon heart in California in 1984, was particularly spectacular.
It died three weeks after the operation.
aar / dpa