A team of US surgeons have performed the first transplant of a genetically modified pig heart into a living human, a huge milestone in the effort to solve a persistent organ shortage.
David Bennett is doing well three days later.
Bennett said it was either die or do the transplant. I know it is a shot in the dark, but it is my last choice.
The team at the University of Maryland Medical Center had to get special permission from US regulators to carry out the procedure, based on the argument that Bennett would have died without the intervention. Bennet was not eligible for a human transplant because of his poor condition.
Scientists had to remove genes that would have caused Bennett to reject the pig heart.
Growing transplant organs in animals could be beneficial. 17 people die each day while waiting for an organ transplant in the US according to the Health Resources & Services Administration.
Health practitioners wouldn't have to be flown across the country to recover donor organs.
Last year, surgeons in the US successfully transplant a pig's kidneys to a human. The pig was genetically modified to grow a human-like organ.
Bennett will pull through, but there are no guarantees.
Christine Lau, chair of the department of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told the BBC that he is at more of a risk because he requires more immunosuppression.
She said that they don't know how well the patient does from now on.
A man gets a pig heart in the first transplant of its kind.
Doctors successfully transplant a pigKidney to a human for the first time.
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