Man given pig heart in world-first transplant

It's a world-first and time will now tell is it has been successful, reports ITV News US Correspondent Emma Murphy

In a medical first, doctors have transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life.

57-year-old David Bennett was ineligible for a human heart transplant and had no other option, his son said.

While it’s too soon to know if the operation will work, it marks a step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants.

Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center say the transplant showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in the human body without immediate rejection.

“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 choice,” Mr Bennett said a day before the surgery, according to a statement provided by the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Mr Bennett's son, David Bennett Jr, said: "This was crisis mode. This was my dad was on his deathbed. I mean, my dad's prognosis early on was very, very, very bad. And the doctors have done everything in their power to keep him alive."

"They basically said he had less than six months and that this was very experimental," Mr Bennet's son said. "He could he could not live or he could last a day or he could last a couple of days. I mean, we're in the unknown at this point."

Mr Bennett's son, David Bennett Jr, described how his father's health was in 'crisis mode'

He continued: "And so it was very difficult for him to make this decision. But at the end of the day, this was his best hope of getting out of the hospital and having somewhat of a normal quality of life."

On Monday, Mr Bennett was breathing on his own while still connected to a heart-lung machine to help his new heart.

The next few weeks will be critical as he recovers from the surgery and doctors carefully monitor how his heart is faring.

There’s a huge shortage of human organs donated for transplant, driving scientists to try to figure out how to use animal organs instead.

Last year, there were just over 3,800 heart transplants in the US, a record number, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system.

"If this works, there will be an endless supply of these organs for patients who are suffering,” said Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the Maryland university's animal-to-human transplant program.

But prior attempts at such transplants have failed, largely because patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ. Notably, in 1984, Baby Fae, a dying infant, lived 21 days with a baboon heart.

The difference this time: the Maryland surgeons used a heart from a pig that had undergone gene-editing to remove a sugar in its cells that’s responsible for that hyper-fast organ rejection.

Several biotech companies are developing pig organs for human transplant; the one used for Friday's operation came from Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics.

“I think you can characterise it as a watershed event,” Dr David Klassen, UNOS’ chief medical officer, said of the Maryland transplant.

The surgery last Friday took seven hours at the Baltimore hospital.

Dr Bartley Griffith, who performed the surgery, said the patient’s condition — heart failure and an irregular heartbeat — made him ineligible for a human heart transplant or a heart pump.

'I want to live and if I don't, you'll learn something,' Dr Bartley Griffith, who performed the surgery, recalls patient David Bennett saying

Dr Griffith had transplanted pig hearts into about 50 baboons over five years, before offering the option to Bennett.

He said: "We wouldn't give him a worse outcome. We had a chance, perhaps, of striking the good one.

"He himself said, 'I want to live and if I don't, you'll learn something.'

"And yeah, I mean, I wish we knew more. But we're learning a lot every day with this gentleman. And so far, we're happy with our decision to move forward, and he is as well.

"Big smile on his face today."