Maryland: Patient dies after pig heart transplant

A man in Maryland, USA Nearly six weeks ago The treating doctors said on Tuesday that the heart of a genetically modified pig that was transplanted had died. He was 58 years old. Fawcett had a life-threatening heart defect, but he was For conventional heart transplantation Outside the text of the question. On September 20, a pig heart was introduced.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine said that for the first four weeks after the operation, his heart appeared healthy, but recently he showed rejection reactions. The surgeon in charge, Mohamed Mohieldin, announced that his team will now analyze what happened to the heart.

“He knew his time would be short.”

Fawcett’s wife, Anne, also issued a statement through University Hospital. Her husband “knew his time with us would be short.” “He never imagined he would live this long.”

Fawcett was the second person to receive a pig heart transplant. A team from Maryland attempted to perform the world’s first such transplant last year. The patient, David Bennett, survived for only two months. Heart failure for reasons that are not entirely clear. Signs of the swine virus are found inside the organ. For Faucette’s trial, among other things, tests for the virus have been improved.

Attempts to transplant organs from animals to humans — so-called xenotransplantations — have failed for decades because the human immune system immediately destroys the foreign tissue. Scientists have now genetically modified pigs so that their organs become more similar to those of humans. Scientists hope that organ transplants will one day be able to compensate for the severe shortage of human organ donors.

(Data Protection Authority/System)