Most of us are amazed at what medical science is able to accomplish. It seems as if they are always moving forward, and now they are moving forward in a very unique way.
It took place at the University of Maryland Medical Center when a man by the name of Dave Bennett agreed to an unusual surgery. That 57-year-old heart patient gave them the green light to transplant his heart with a gene-edited pig heart.
His son David spoke about it as being a miracle, saying his father got what he needed. Of course, it took nine hours of surgery to replace his heart with one from the 240-pound pig but at this point, Bennett is doing fine and breathing without a ventilator.
This isn’t a new concept. Scientists have been working for many years to learn how to use animal organs to save the life of a human. Considering the fact that over 100,000 people are waiting for a transplant, with some 6000 of them dying annually, it’s something that is sorely needed.
They decided on a pig because they have organs that are similar to humans. It would put an end to the waiting list if they were able to use those organs and transplant them into humans.
Welcome to the field of xenotransplantation. That field got a boost whenever Bennett agreed to this surgery and the fact that it seems to be working is some of the best news we’ve heard in a long time.
They’ve used pig organs before for transplants, including in September when a kidney from a pig was transplanted into a human. Unfortunately, the individual receiving the transplant died but they kept them alive long enough to show that the gene-edited kidney will not be rejected automatically.
They took everything that they knew from the September operation and put it into this operation.
There are many who are heralding this as a real breakthrough but animal-rights activists are not as happy about it. They are objecting to the use of pig organs, saying that they should make more human organs available for donation.
As far as Bennett is concerned, he has been healthy most of his life but he started having chest pains in October. After going to the University of Maryland Medical Center, he discovered that his heart was no longer working as it should.
They tried to save his own heart for quite some time but unfortunately, they were unable to do so. That put them in line for this transplant, as he wasn’t eligible for an artificial heart pump because he had an uncontrolled arrhythmia.