A 58-year-old US man has become the world's second pig heart transplant recipient, marking another milestone in the growing field.
World's 2nd Pig Heart Transplant
Like the first one, this second pig heart transplant was performed by experts from the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland. The first patient died two months post-transplant due to several factors, including his poor health.
Lawrence Faucette, the second patient, was found not to be eligible for a human heart transplant due to bleeding complications and a vascular disease. Without the pig heart transplant, the man was on the verge of facing almost certain heart failure. Faucette expresses that his only hope was the xenotransplant of a pig, adding that at least he had hope and a chance.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted the go signal for the experimental surgery under its compassionate use program. The FDA explains that this program serves as a way for patients facing immediately life-threatening and serious conditions to access investigatory medical interventions for treatments beyond clinical trials. This case applies to when there are no other satisfactory or comparable alternatives.
With that, the second pig heart transplant operation took place last Wednesday. After the transplant, Faucette was independently breathing while his new heart was working well without any external support. He had to take anti-rejection drugs and go through a novel antibody therapy in order to prevent body damage and organ rejection.
This genetically modified pig heart has 10 different genetic modifications. Some pig genes were knocked off while some human ones were added. This was done for it to be more acceptable and compatible with the immune system of humans.
Xenotransplantation: Transplanting Organs of Animals Into Humans
It is challenging to pull off xenotransplants as the immune system of the patient may end up attacking the unknown organ. In fact, animal-to-human organ transplants have seen failed attempts for a couple of decades. Scientists have been utilizing genetically modified pig organs to try bypassing the issue.
Previously, genetically modified pig kidneys were transplanted to patients who were declared brain-dead. In fact, just this month, a pig kidney transplant on a brain-dead patient remained functional for 61 days.
Earlier research on xenotransplantation mainly focused on taking primate organs. For instance, in 1984, a baboon heart transplant was performed on a newborn called Baby Fae. However, the baby only lived for 20 days.
Xenotransplantation efforts currently focus on pigs, which are believed to be ideal organ donors for humans due to their organ size, large litters, fast growth, and raising.
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