Man gets genetically-modified pig heart in world-first transplant

The University of Maryland School of Medicine has an image.

The image caption is.

The surgeon is pictured with David Bennett.

A US man is the first person in the world to get a heart transplant from a genetically-modified pig.

Doctors say David Bennett is doing well three days after the procedure.

The transplant was considered the last hope of saving Mr Bennett's life, but it is not yet clear what his long-term chances of survival are.

Mr Bennett said that it was either die or do the transplant.

He said it was his last choice, but he knew it was a shot in the dark.

The doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center were given a special permission by the US medical regulators to carry out the procedure on the basis that Mr Bennett would have died.

He was ineligible for a human transplant because he was in poor health.

The pig used in the transplant had been genetically modified so that it wouldn't reject Mr Bennett's organ.

The transplant marks the culmination of years of research and could change lives around the world.

The surgery would bring the world one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis, said the surgeon. 17 people die every day in the US waiting for a transplant, with more than 100,000 on the waiting list.

Dr Christine Lau is the chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

He is at more of a risk because we require more immunosuppression than we would normally do in a human-to-human transplant. She told the radio station that she didn't know how well the patient would do from now on.

People die on the waiting list for organs. If we could use pig organs that were genetically engineered, they would be able to get an organ as they needed it.

We wouldn't have to fly all over the country at night to recover organs to put them into recipients.

The use of pig heart valves is already common, and the possibility of using animal organs for transplants has been considered for a long time.

In October of 2021, surgeons in New York announced that they had successfully transplant a pig's kidneys into a person. The operation was the most advanced one so far.

The recipient was brain dead and had no hope of recovery.

There is a small amount of hope and huge risks.

The hope of a solution to the chronic shortage of donor human organs is provided by this watershed moment. There is still a long way to go before we know if giving people animal organs is the way forward. Pig hearts are not the same as human hearts. It's not good, compared to a human donor heart. It is possible to get them to work.

Organ rejection is the bigger issue. These pigs are bred to lack genes that can cause rejection. They are cloned with certain genes and reared until they reach an age where their organs are big enough to be used for transplants.

It's too early to know how Mr Bennett will fare. His doctors were clear that the surgery was risky. The risks are huge and the potential gains are small.

Mr Bennett is hoping that his transplant will allow him to live. He had a machine that kept him alive after he was diagnosed with terminal heart disease, and he was not able to use his legs for six weeks before the surgery.

The caption is media.

The University of Maryland's Muhammad Mohiuddin calls the transplant a game-changer.

He said last week that he was looking forward to getting out of bed.

Mr Bennett was reported to be breathing on his own while being monitored.

What will happen next is not clear.

Mr Bennett's son David Bennett Jr told the Associated Press that the family were "in the unknown at this point".

He said that he really understands the importance of what was done.

"We've never done this in a human and I think that we have given him a better option than what continuing his therapy would have been," Mr. Griffith said. I don't know if he will live for a day, week, month, year.

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