The University of Maryland School of Medicine announced Monday that U.S. surgeons have successfully transplanted the world’s first genetically modified pig heart into a human patient.
The surgery was performed on Friday and showed for the first time that an animal heart can continue to function within a human without immediate rejection, the company said in a statement.
A 57-year-old man who received a Porsche heart has been declared ineligible for human transplant surgery. The new organ is now being closely monitored by doctors to make sure it is functioning properly.
“Either death or this transplant operation”
“Whether it’s death or this transplant surgery. I want to live. I know it’s very successful, but it’s my last wish,” the Maryland resident said the day before his surgery, according to the school. Medicine.
“I can not wait to get out of bed once I’ve recovered,” the patient continued, adding that he had been bedridden for the past few months and was connected to a machine that kept him alive.
The key turning point
On New Year’s Day the American Pharmaceuticals Company gave the green light to this surgery. “It’s a major surgical turning point and brings us one step closer to a solution to organ failure.” , Commented Bartley Griffith, who performed the transplant
The pig that comes from the heart is genetically modified so that it does not produce the type of sugar that is normally found in all pig cells, and the organ rejects it immediately.
The genetic modification was made by Revivicar, which also donated a pig kidney that surgeons successfully linked to the blood vessels of a brain dead patient in New York in October.
110,000 waiting list
Nearly 110,000 Americans are currently on the organ transplant waiting list, and more than 6,000 people in need of transplant surgery die each year in the country.
Xenografts – from animal to human – are not new. Physicians have been trying cross-breeding surgery since the 17th century, with early experiments focusing on animals.
In 1984, a baboon’s heart was transplanted to a baby, but the baby, nicknamed “Baby Fay”, survived for only 20 days.
afp / jpr