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David Bennet received the transplant on January 7 and his death was recorded two months after surgery, on the afternoon of this Tuesday, March 9. The procedure was carried out thanks to advances in gene editing tools.
After several weeks of good performance and no signs of rejection, David Bennett’s condition began to progressively deteriorate.
In a statement, the University of Maryland Medical Center said the patient received “compassionate palliative care” after it became clear he would not recover.
According to the institution, the patient was able to communicate with his family in his last hours of life.
The information issued by the hospital also highlights that “before giving his consent to receive the transplant, Mr. Bennet was fully informed of the risks” and benefits of the procedure classified as experimental.
“I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last option”
David Bennet entered the medical center last October, when the team of doctors decided to place him on an extracorporeal circulation machine to keep him alive, as he was not eligible for a normal heart transplant.
The US Food and Drug Administration had to give the green light to the unique procedure of inserting an animal organ. “It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last option,” Bennett said at the time.
His surgery was one of the first to demonstrate the feasibility of transplanting a pig heart into a human, thanks to advances in gene-editing tools.
File: US surgeons successfully transplant a pig heart into a person
For a long time, the organs of pigs have been in the sights of scientists as they bear some resemblance to those of people.
In previous surgeries, no positive results were obtained due to the viruses that caused the risk of infection and the genetic differences that generated the rejection of the inserted element.
Viable procedure in the absence of organs
The enthusiasm that was experienced with this type of surgery is explained by the scarcity of human organs donated for transplants. depending on the page organdonor.gov. In the United States, some 106,134 children, women and men are currently on the national waiting list. Every day 17 people die waiting for a procedure of this type.
Genetic modifications pave the way for this type of surgery to be viable. In the particular case of David Bennett, the pig chosen for his transplant had been modified to remove a gene that produces the sugar that initiates an immune response in humans.
Several biotech companies are developing organs from this type of animal for transplants, such as the Bennet surgery.
With Reuters and EFE