US doctors transplant gene-edited pig heart into human patient in a medical first
- Patient David Bennett, 57, is doing well after highly experimental surgery done in a last-ditch effort to save his life
- The groundbreaking transplant shows that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in a human body without immediate rejection
In a medical first, US doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life, and a Maryland hospital said on Monday that he is doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery.
While it is too soon to know if the operation really will work, it marks a step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants.
Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Centre say the transplant showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in the human body without immediate rejection.
The patient, David Bennett, 57, knew there was no guarantee the experiment would work but he was dying, ineligible for a human heart transplant and had no other option, his son said.
“It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” Bennett said a day before the surgery, according to a statement provided by the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
