In world’s first-of-its-kind heart transplant Man gets genetically-modified pig heart

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 doing well three days after the experimental seven-hour procedure in Baltimore, doctors say, according to an AFP report on BBC News.

Although it is not yet clear what his long-term chances of survival are, the transplant was considered as the last hope of saving Mr Bennett’s life, 

“It was either die or do this transplant,” Mr Bennett explained a day before the surgery.

“I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” he said.

Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center were granted a special dispensation by the US medical regulator to carry out the procedure, on the grounds that Mr Bennett – who has terminal heart disease – would otherwise have died.

He had been deemed ineligible for a human transplant, a decision that is often taken by doctors when the patient is in very poor health.

The pig used in the transplant was genetically modified to knock out several genes that would have led to the organ being rejected by Mr Bennett’s body, the AFP news agency reports.

For the medical team that carried out the transplant, it marks the culmination of years of research and could change lives around the world.

Surgeon Bartley Griffith said the surgery would bring the world “one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis”. Currently 17 people die every day in the US waiting for a transplant, with more than 100,000 reportedly on the waiting list.

Dr Christine Lau, chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, says

” How well the patient does from now is, you know, it’s never been done before, so we really don’t know,” she told the BBC.

“People die all the time waiting for organs. If we could use genetically engineered pig organs they’d never have to wait, they could basically get an organ as they needed it.

“Plus, we wouldn’t have to fly all over the country to get organs to put them into recipients,” she added.

The possibility of using animal organs for so-called xenotransplantation to meet the demand has long been considered, and using pig heart valves has already been  a standard practice for quite some time.  

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