David Benett, the first person to receive a pig heart transplant, died two months after the historic procedure in which the transplanted organ it worked no signs of rejection for weeks, the University of Maryland School of Medicine Medical Center, which performed the surgery, reported Wednesday.
Bennett, age 57, died on March 8 after receiving the transplant on January 7, the University of Maryland hospital announced in a statement, noting that the patient’s health began to deteriorate days ago and after doctors confirmed that he was not going to survive They put him in hospice care.
In its statement, the hospital reports that “no obvious cause was identified” at the time of his death, so it is unknown if frequent problems in transplants and xenotransplantation, such as infections or rejection of the organ received, had any role in his death. . According to the medical center, once they conclude their case studies, they will publish the results in a specialized medium.
Members of the medical team said they are “devastated” by the loss of the patient, as the author of the transplant, Dr. Bartley P. Griffith, noted in the statement, who highlighted Bennet’s courage and desire to live.
Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, director of the health center’s cardiothoracic program, for his part stressed his gratitude to the patient for his “historic role” in the advances of xenotransplantation. In fact, that surgery raised hopes that the use of organs from different species might one day solve the chronic shortage of human organs for donation. The team behind the operation said, however, that they remain optimistic about its success in the future and that they plan to continue this work in clinical trials at a later date.
“We have gained invaluable learnings about how the genetically modified pig heart can function well inside the human body while the immune system behaves properly,” said Muhammad Mohiuddin.
David Bennet suffered from ventricular fibrillation, an anomaly that accelerates the heartbeat, a condition that made him unsuitable for a heart transplant. The same institution explained in January that xenotransplantation was “the only option available to the patient.”
It is worth mentioning that pig coronary valves have been used for more than five years to replace those of numerous heart patients whose own valves have stopped working. They are the so-called biological implants, and in this case a complete organ transplant was tested, something that required waiting to determine if it was really useful.
In this regard, health specialist Pedro León Cifuentes concludes that an experiment like this, in which the patient had no alternative and a genetically modified organ was available as an option in a research framework, seeks to analyze the variables that determine the viability of the xenotransplantation. Hence, the evolution of the procedure is rigorously studied without defining a specific goal that would have to give a satisfactory result.
«One cannot speak of failure, but, on the contrary, this historical procedure allows obtaining data that are inputs, as well as studies that will allow, in addition to obtaining knowledge on a subject that is just beginning, to reinforce what is good, correct shortcomings and move forward in these processes in future trials.
Without a doubt, says the specialist, this is already a milestone in this type of procedure.
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