Two months ago, a patient with a terminal heart disease underwent a high-profile surgery. I believe that many students have noticed this news. David Bennett, 57, implanted a genetically modified pig heart at Maryland University Hospital in the United States, when (Benard) Bennett did not have access to a conventional heart donor because of heart failure, and to save his life, he underwent this landmark operation.
He died on Tuesday, and the cause of death said it was still under investigation, and personal estimates were still related to immune rejection or infection.
Because of the Spring Festival and Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, many people have forgotten this patient with a human face, knowing that he seems to be recovering well, withdrawing ecmo support, and going to the ground... A few days ago, I suddenly saw the announcement of the hospital, saying that the patient's condition had deteriorated, and everyone was concerned again: how has he been lately
For this result, many friends feel that the result is not very good, the patient survival time is too short, in fact, in the industry's view, after transplantation can survive for 2 months has been a very very good result, you know, the previous results of xenotransplantation has been very poor, most experimental transplant animals will have a serious immune rejection reaction within 72 hours, and it is difficult for the receptor to survive for a long time. One of the longer previous records is that babies survived 21 days after a baboon heart transplant.
Although Bernard has passed away, the significance of this epoch-making operation is self-evident, and this case will surely go down in history.
PS: Bernard's personal experience is also very complicated, more than 30 years ago Bernard because he saw his wife sitting on the lap of another man and angrily shot out, stabbed the enemy with a knife into a serious injury, resulting in the latter's long-term paralysis, in his 40s died of illness, Bernard was also imprisoned, and then released on bail. After being world-famous for transplanting pig hearts this time, the family members of the deceased enemy who was stabbed by him saw the news and sighed a lot, and the court ruled that Bernard should pay more than $3 million in damages, and they have not received a penny so far...
Bernard underwent surgery this time, in a sense he was brave and made his own contribution to the development of medicine.