Health
Man with pig's heart continues to recover from transplant
Xenotransplantation has previously not worked because of patients' bodies rejecting the animal organ.
Baltimore: The 57-year-old man who received the first pig heart transplant continues to recover, four days after the experimental surgery, hospital authorities said.
As per reports, the terminally ill patient has been connected to a heart-lung machine to support his new heart since the transplant—the rare surgery, scientifically known as ‘Xenotransplantation’.
Xenotransplantation has previously not worked because of patients' bodies rejecting the animal organ.
On Tuesday, the patient was taken off the machine, according to Deborah Kotz, a spokeswoman for the University Of Maryland School Of Medicine.
"It's still day to day and will be for the next few weeks," Kotz said.
Bennett received the highly experimental transplant last Friday at the University of Maryland Medical Center and surgeons gave him genetically modified pig heart, in a bid to save his life.
Bennett's condition — heart failure and an irregular heartbeat — made him ineligible for a human heart transplant or a heart pump, doctors said.
Following the shortage of human organs donated for transplant, researchers have been trying to figure out how to use animal organs instead.
However, the heart came from a pig that had been genetically modified to make its organs less likely to be rejected by the human body.
The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees such experiments, allowed the surgery under what's called a "compassionate use" emergency authorisation, available when a patient with a life-threatening condition has no other options.
However, it is too early to know if the operation will work but marks a step in the decades-long search by scientists to use animal organs for life-saving transplants.
The most notable attempt was in 1984, when Baby, a dying infant, lived 21 days with a baboon heart.