Cause of death in world’s first pig heart transplant patient was found
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Cause of death in world’s first pig heart transplant patient was found.
The heart used in the first pig heart transplant was found to be infected with porcine cytomegalovirus.
In March, a patient who received a pig heart transplant died. Now, the heart used for the operation has been found to be infected with a swine virus, according to the surgeon who performed the operation.
The virus found in the tests, called porcine cytomegalovirus (pCMV), primarily infects pigs, although it has also been found in humans, SwineHealth.org reported.
Still, it is unknown whether human cells can be infected with pCMV.
According to a statement from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, it was unclear whether the virus was responsible for the patient’s death or because the patient’s heart was in an advanced state of failure before the transplant. The patient’s death is still under investigation.
Dr Bartley Griffith was in charge of the first heart transplant in January 2022, and everything seemed to be going well after the surgery.
Pig hearts run inside recipient David Bennett. Maryland hospitals regularly release information that Bennett appears to be slowly recovering.
In February, the hospital also released a video of Bennett watching the Super Bowl from his hospital bed and with his physical therapist.
Unfortunately, on March 8, Bennett passed away. Doctors were unable to give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition began to deteriorate in the days before his death. It is reported that Bennett is 57 years old this year.
“We are saddened by the passing of Bennett,” Griffith said in a statement. “He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought to the end.”
Bennett’s gene-edited pig hearts survived significantly longer than the last milestone of an allogeneic transplant — in 1984, Fae, a dying baby in California, lived 21 days after a baboon’s heart was transplanted.
Donor shortage
The need for another source of organs is enormous. Last year, the United States set a record with more than 41,000 transplants — including about 3,800 heart transplants.
But more than 106,000 people are still on waiting lists across the United States, as thousands die each year before getting an organ, and thousands more are never even put on the list.
“The organ shortage is really an unmitigated crisis, and we never had a real solution,” said Dr. Jayme Locke of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), whose team will begin pig kidney transplants this year.
What is an allogeneic transplant?
An animal-to-human transplant is called an allogeneic transplant. They have been trying for decades, without success, because people’s immune systems attack foreign tissue almost immediately. But scientists now have new techniques for editing pigs’ genes, which makes their organs more human-like.
Dr. David Kaczorowski of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said the recent spate of pig experiments in the past year was a big step forward.
A heart transplant surgeon, Kaczorowski did experiments testing pig organs in non-human primates to help pave the way, but he says something can only be learned by transplanting them into humans.
Pigs have long been used in human medicine, including pig skin grafts and the implantation of pig heart valves. But transplanting whole organs is far more complicated than using highly processed tissue.
The future of allogeneic transplantation
Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health cautions that scientists still have a lot to learn about how long pig organs can survive and how best to alter their genes.
“I think different organs will require different genetic modifications,” he said in an email to The Associated Press.
In addition, researchers must address practical issues, such as how to minimize the time it takes to get pig organs to their destination. UAB has housed the transformed pigs in a sterile facility in Birmingham with an operating theatre-like space to remove organs and prepare them for transplant.
Organ rejection, infection, and other complications are risks for any transplant recipient. Experts hope that the Maryland team will soon publish the exact response of Bennett’s body to the pig’s heart in a medical journal.
“From Bennett’s experience, we have gained valuable insight into how a genetically modified pig heart can function well in humans with an adequate immune system,” said Muhammad Mohiuddin, Ph. inhibition.”
Cause of death in world’s first pig heart transplant patient was found
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