The University of Maryland Medical School said Monday that surgeons had successfully implanted a pig's heart into a human.
The medical school said in a statement that the surgery shows for the first time that an animal heart can survive in a human.
David Bennett was ineligible for a human transplant.
The 57-year-old Maryland resident is being watched to see how the new organ performs.
It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. He said a day before the surgery that it was his last choice.
Bennett, who has been on a life support machine for several months, said he was looking forward to getting out of bed.
The FDA granted an emergency authorization for the surgery on New Year's Eve to help a patient who was unsuitable for a conventional transplant.
"This was a breakthrough surgery and brings us one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis", said Bartley Griffith, who had a pig heart transplant.
We are cautiously proceeding, but we are optimistic that this first-in-the-world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future.
The heart. The University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Bennett's pig was part of a herd that had undergone a genetic editing procedure to knock out a gene that produces a particular sugar, which would have led to organ rejection.
Revivicor supplied the pig used in a breakthrough transplant on a brain dead patient in New York.
The donated organ was kept in a machine and the team used a new drug and anti-rejection drugs to suppress the immune system and prevent it rejecting the organ.
It is an experimental compound.
More than 6,000 patients die each year before getting an organ transplant in the US, according to official figures.
Doctors have been interested in cross-species organ donation for a long time, and have conducted experiments back to the 17th century.
In 1984 a baby known as "Baby Fae" survived only 20 days after her baboon heart was transplant, but early research focused on harvesting organs from primates.
Pig heart valves are used in humans, and pig skin is used for burn victims.
The fact that pigs are already raised as a food source makes them ideal donors.
Agence France-Presse.
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