Jimu news reporter Song Qingying
According to the BBC, on March 8, local time, David Bennett, the world's first American man to receive a pig heart transplant, died, and he survived for two months after receiving the transplant. Allegedly, he was in better shape after the surgery until a few days ago when his condition suddenly deteriorated.
David Bennett (Source: BBC)
Bennett, 57, a patient with advanced heart disease, was bedridden for 6 weeks before surgery, relying solely on machines to survive. Doctors said his condition could not have undergone a traditional heart transplant and "would have died." ”
On Jan. 7, at the University of Maryland Medical Center, Bennett underwent a swine heart transplant. The university's medical school was authorized by the U.S. medical regulator for the procedure.
Before the surgery, Bennett said he was fully aware of the risks of the surgery, "It's a gamble, but it's also my last resort." ”
After the surgery, Bennett was in good shape, watching the Super Bowl with his family and mentioning his dog Lucky, who wanted to go home and take care of himself.
But Bennett's doctors say his condition began to deteriorate rapidly a few days ago, leaving doctors feeling very sad.
Bennett and his son (Source: The Times)
Despite Bennett's death, Bennett's son expressed gratitude for the operation, according to the Associated Press, and he wants "the transplant to be the beginning, not the end."
Bartley Griffith, the surgeon who performed Bennett's transplant, said in a statement: "He was a brave and noble patient who fought until the end. ”
The first swine heart transplant was a milestone for the medical community.
Currently, 17 people in the U.S. die every day waiting for a transplant, and more than 100,000 people are reportedly on the waiting list. Griffiths has previously said the surgery would bring the world "one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis."
For a long time, the medical community has been considering the use of animal organs for transplantation. In October 2021, New York doctors announced that they had successfully transplanted a pig's kidney into the human body, and at that time, the operation was the most advanced experiment in the field. However, by the time the patient received the transplant, he was already brain dead and had no hope of recovery.
According to reports, the biggest obstacle to the use of animal organ transplantation is "ultra-acute rejection". The body will treat the transplanted organ as an outlier and within minutes it will begin to repel the organ.
It is understood that six human genes were inserted into the pig heart transplanted by Bennett to make it acceptable to the human body. After the heart is transplanted into the body, no "ultra-acute rejection" occurs, which means that the huge obstacle is cleared.
A month after Bennett's surgery, the medical team said he still showed no signs of rejection and that the transplanted heart was running like a "Ferrari engine," though they said Bennett himself was still very weak.
The exact cause of Bennett's death is still under investigation, and the findings will help the medical community understand how far humans are from using animals such as pigs to solve the global shortage of transplanted organs.