Screenshot of the report
According to the New York Post reported on the 27th, in a pioneering pig heart organ transplant earlier this month, American doctors used an unlikely stimulant drug: cocaine. The procedure involves transplanting a pig's heart into a human body.
Dr. Mohammed Muhidin of the University of Maryland Medical Center, director of the Xenotransplantation (Transplanting Animal Organs into humans) program, spoke of his historic work on a 57-year-old patient who became a transplant recipient for the heart of a genetically modified pig.
The report pointed out that the heart was developed by Reviviccor, a regenerative pharmaceutical company in Blacksburg, Virginia, and was genetically edited to make the heart more suitable for human hosts. Although the transport distance of transplanted organs is usually as short as possible, because staying outside the body for several hours, the condition of the organ will deteriorate. However, before the heart was sent to the United States, Swedish medical technology company XVIVO fortified it with medical cocaine.
Muhidin explains how these cocaines are used in hormone mixtures. Such hormones could prevent living tissue from deteriorating during the long journey to Maryland, but the patented solution caught the attention of U.S. drug enforcement officials, who have never been used in this situation.
Medical researchers were unclear about the mechanism behind its efficacy, but Muhidin didn't care about the "why" at the time because a mixture of cocaine and hormones worked better than other alternatives. "When we don't use this solution, the heart goes into decay within 48 hours," he said. But when we started using this method and injected this solution into the heart, the heart was well preserved and just fine when it started beating. ”
Subsequently, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration advanced a lengthy licensing approval process. At the same time, the doctor encouraged further research into the use of cocaine in U.S. organ transplant norms. Muhidin said: "If this procedure is approved by regulators, it will be a huge step forward. ”
(Editor: WDQ)