WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th January, 2022) US surgeons have successfully transplanted in a pioneering procedure a pig's heart into a patient dying of cardiac disease, the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) announced.
"In a first-of-its-kind surgery, a 57-year-old patient with terminal heart disease received a successful transplant of a genetically-modified pig heart and is still doing well three days later," the UMMC said in a news release on Monday. "It was the only currently available option for the patient."
The historic surgery was conducted by University of Maryland school of Medicine faculty at UMMC, the release said.
"This organ transplant demonstrated for the first time that a genetically-modified animal heart can function like a human heart without immediate rejection by the body. The patient, David Bennett, a Maryland resident, is being carefully monitored over the next days and weeks to determine whether the transplant provides lifesaving benefits," the release added.
Bennett had been deemed ineligible for a conventional heart transplant at UMMC as well as at several other leading transplant centers that reviewed his medical records, according to the release.
