NewStats: 3,261,038 , 8,172,942 topics. Date: Wednesday, 28 May 2025 at 05:54 AM 64v6s

https://nairaland.unblockandhide.com/6933422/man-undergoes-first-successful-heart

The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the surgery announced Wednesday.

David Bennett, 57, died Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Doctors didn’t give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier.

Bennett's son praised the hospital for offering the last-ditch experiment, saying the family hoped it would help further efforts to end the organ shortage.

“We are grateful for every innovative moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that went into this historic effort,” David Bennett Jr. said in a statement released by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “We hope this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end.”

Doctors for decades have sought to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Bennett, a handyman from Hagerstown, Maryland, was a candidate for this newest attempt only because he otherwise faced certain death — ineligible for a human heart transplant, bedridden and on life , and out of other options.

After the Jan. 7 operation, Bennett's son told The Associated Press his father knew there was no guarantee it would work.

Prior attempts at such transplants -- or xenotransplantation -- have failed largely because patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ. This time, the Maryland surgeons used a heart from a gene-edited pig: Scientists had modified the animal to remove pig genes that trigger the hyper-fast rejection and add human genes to help the body accept the organ.

At first the pig heart was functioning, and the Maryland hospital issued periodic updates that Bennett seemed to be slowly recovering. Last month, the hospital released video of him watching the Super Bowl from his hospital bed while working with his physical therapist.

Bennett survived significantly longer with the gene-edited pig heart than one of the last milestones in xenotransplantation -- when Baby Fae, a dying California infant, lived 21 days with a baboon's heart in 1984.

“We are devastated by the loss of Mr. Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end,” Dr. Bartley Griffith, who performed the surgery at the Baltimore hospital, said in a statement.

The need for another source of organs is huge. More than 41,000 transplants were performed in the U.S. last year, a record -- including about 3,800 heart transplants. But more than 106,000 people remain on the national waiting list, thousands die every year before getting an organ and thousands more never even get added to the list, considered too much of a long shot.

The Food and Drug istration had allowed the dramatic Maryland experiment under “comionate use” rules for emergency situations. Bennett’s doctors said he had heart failure and an irregular heartbeat, plus a history of not complying with medical instructions. He was deemed ineligible for a human heart transplant that requires strict use of immune-suppressing medicines, or the remaining alternative, an implanted heart pump.

Doctors didn't reveal the exact cause of Bennett's death. Rejection, infection and other complications are risks for transplant recipients.

But from Bennett's experience, "we have gained invaluable insights learning that the genetically modified pig heart can function well within the human body while the immune system is adequately suppressed,” said Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the Maryland university’s animal-to-human transplant program.

One next question is whether scientists have learned enough from Bennett's experience and some other recent experiments with gene-edited pig organs to persuade the FDA to allow a clinical trial — possibly with an organ such as a kidney that isn’t immediately fatal if it fails.

Twice last fall, surgeons at New York University got permission from the families of deceased individuals to temporarily attach a gene-edited pig kidney to blood vessels outside the body and watch them work before ending life . And surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham went a step further, transplanting a pair of gene-edited pig kidneys into a brain-dead man in a step-by-step rehearsal for an operation they hope to try in living patients possibly later this year.

Pigs have long been used in human medicine, including pig skin grafts and implantation of pig heart valves. But transplanting entire organs is much more complex than using highly processed tissue. The gene-edited pigs used in these experiments were provided by Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics, one of several biotech companies in the running to develop suitable pig organs for potential human transplant.

SOURCE

He even look like one

God help us, those who have healthy hearts don't know what God has done for them. Give me and anyone battling with heart diseases a perfect heart healing.


Any philanthropists should come to my aids now, I don't want to commit sucide. I need to do the surgery now please help me

God na your mate.

Baba wey put heart know why. You no fit cheat the process.

That's quite some progress. We shall get there soon.

isaiah4life:
God na your mate.

Baba wey put heart know why. You no fit cheat the process.

Lol give it time bruv. Going by your words, a foetus shouldn't survive outside the womb right? Yet, we see tube babies growing up healthy and perfectly normal. Never rule out science/technology

Malory:
He even look like a pig

You de craze

I know say you resemble Iguana

at least they tried and gave that man hope (+2 more months of life)

pyyxxaro:




You de craze

I know say you resemble Iguana

You must be talking about Helinues here

Malory:
He even look like a pig

that's a cruel thing to say, especially about the dead.

Do you all expect him to live long with a pig’s heart ? Duh

Omo!

So, that means it doesn't work like the real heart ?
Or, they should check if it was the heart ish that killed him

Even transplant from same species dey trigger autoimmune response then na from another species.
Your life never remains thesame when ever you do a transplant.
Suppressants will only weaken your immune system.
RIP Man,you were just another lab rat.

Sekoni003:




Lol give it time bruv. Going by your words, a foetus shouldn't survive outside the womb right? But we see tube babies growing up healthy and perfectly normal. Never rule out science/technology

Lol...:please don’t do that....
Tube babies don’t grow outside their mother

The term tube babies only meant in-vitro
fertilization...I.e. the fertilization ddnt occur naturally tru sex, but in the lab by manipulating the sperm and egg in a tube or whateva

That doesn’t mean the foetus spent the entire 9 months in a tube.....the fertilization product is returned into the mothers womb and delivered normally via the vagina or C/S

Science never mad enough to create and sustain womb/amniotic sac environment for 9 months..... that’s will be fvcking crazy and dangerously expensive..

Na old man already na. E don reach to die na

MITCHELL96:
Omo!

So, that means it doesn't work like the real kidney ?
Or, they should check if it was the kidney ish that killed him

How did this matter get to kidney ??

advanceDNA:


How did this matter get to kidney ??

I've modified it

Don't know what's wrong with me Abeg

Malory:
He even look like a pig

You tryna sound funny but you ain't.

Nice try to the scientists.
The rejection is always the biggest challenge.

Kingpin1000:
Even transplant from same species dey trigger autoimmune response then na from another species.
Your life never remains thesame when ever you do a transplant.
Suppressants will only weaken your immune system.
RIP Man,you were just another lab rat.

They attempted something for a pathological process. And I believe they will reattempt it again until they get it right.
You started well as a scientist but your concluding statements baffled me.
IF other Nairalanders whom I believe are enveloped in their Pentecostal mentality are busy castigating the doctors who attempted something that will eventually be of help to Africans some day, not you that started as enlightened soul.

HOPE you know the PARACETAMOL you swallow today once started like this...?
What have you contributed as a Black man?
Of what relevance are u in the scheme of things?
These are things that should disturb you.

WHITES take risk a lot.
And they do these for everyone.
Including the almost negligible people.
Accord them that Respect

thorpido:
Nice try to the scientists.
The rejection is always the biggest challenge.

You are the MOST SENSIBLE person to have commented on this.
Kudos to you.
I will like to know you more.
That's if you permit

It is only Buhari that can survive with a pig's heart cos man has no heart at all. Very bitter soul

MALIGNANTGuest:

You are the MOST SENSIBLE person to have commented on this.
Kudos to you.
I will like to know you more.
That's if you permit

You can follow me on Nairaland.

sad

Our Body belongs to the Almighty God, we live and we die. We must die.

What were they expecting before?

So sad. The hospital tried to save a life