Pig virus may have been factor in historic pig heart transplant patient’s death
- Researchers are trying to learn what killed the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig
- US man David Bennett Snr died in March, two months after groundbreaking experimental transplant
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In Bennett’s weakened state, the virus called pig cytomegalovirus or CMV might have been one of several factors that contributed to his eventual demise, according to Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin, who co-led the University of Maryland Medicine team, that performed the January 7 transplant.
Bennett died two months after receiving the pig heart, which itself was a last-ditch effort to save his life.
An autopsy after Bennett’s death suggested that while the pig heart had been pumping well, scar tissue was building up in the organ, thickening it and preventing it from fully relaxing after pushing through the blood.
Examination also revealed the presence of pig cytomegalovirus, the porcine version of a very common human virus usually kept in check by the immune system. A PCR analysis of tissue from Bennett’s heart showed some viral DNA, though researchers found no clear signs of infection.
The pig CMV clearly came from the transplant and was not something Bennett caught earlier, Mohiuddin said, although the pig had been checked for the virus using all available testing methods.
