First Successful Transplant of Pig's Heart into Adult Human
It’s a historic breakthrough for scientists and researchers in the field of medicine to be able to transplant a pig’s heart into an adult human. Davit Bennett, a 57yrs old Maryland resident suffering from a life-threatening condition called Arrhythmia underwent a pig heart transplant in January 2022.
He had been hospitalized for weeks and was connected to a heart-lung bypass machine called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to remain alive. He was deemed ineligible for an artificial heart pump due to his severe condition.
The only choice left with the doctors of Maryland Medical center was to experiment with the pig's heart for Mr.Bennett to survive leading to a major breath through as Mr. Bennett after 3 days of transplant did not show any rejection to the pig’s heart.
Transplantation of an animal’s heart is known as xenotransplantation which was previously performed in the 1980s on a newborn child named Stephanie Fae Beauclair who was born with a fatal heart condition. After a month of the transplantation, due to the immune system’s rejection, the baby died because of which this procedure was abandoned.
The transplantation on Mr.Bennett was carried out by Bartley P. Griffith who is the Thomas E. and Alice Marie Hales Distinguished Professor in Transplant Surgery at UMSOM (University of Maryland School of Medicine) and director of the Cardiac Transplant Program at UMMC (University of Maryland Medical Center).
The surgery also involved Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, MD, who is known to be one of the world’s best experts on transplanting animal organs. He joined the UMSOM faculty five years ago and established the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program as Program Director.
On the day of the surgery, the pig’s heart was removed and stored in an XVIVO Heat box to preserve it until surgery. The doctors also used a new drug made by Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals which suppresses the immune system, preventing it from rejecting the animal’s organ.
Dr. Griffith says that this breakthrough is a step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis since there aren't plenty of human donors available in the world.
As of now, around 110,000 Americans are waiting for an organ transplant out of which around 6000 patients die every year because of not being able to get the organs based on the reports of organdonor.gov and this discovery could save many lives in the coming future.
After years of research and hard work, this experiment has proved to be a new ray of hope for the people who had given up on life because of inadequate resources.
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