David Bennett, a 57-year-old man with fatal heart disease, died two months after receiving a genetically modified pig’s heart in a breakthrough transplant.
Bennett had the transplant in January from doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).
According to Sky News, the hospital reported on Tuesday that David Bennett had died.
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His condition had been worsening for several days, according to medics, although no definite cause of death has been determined.
Bennett’s son, David Jr., lauded the hospital for attempting the procedure to save his father’s life and expressed his family’s hope that it would help solve the lack of donor organs.
Prior to the January transplant, the deceased had been hospitalized and bedridden for several months, relying on a heart-lung bypass system to stay alive.
The patient, who was stated to be suffering from life-threatening arrhythmia, was apparently left with no other alternative except to undergo an organ transplant.
According to reports, the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) and other major transplant centers analyzed his medical data and determined that he was ineligible for a traditional heart transplant.
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“It was either die or do this transplant,” says the patient. I’d like to live. I realize it’s a gamble, but it’s my final resort. I’m excited to get out of bed after I’ve recovered.” Before the procedure, Bennett stated.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorisation for the surgery on December 31, 2021, through its expanded access (compassionate use) provision in the hope of saving the patient’s life.
Commenting on the surgery, Bartley Griffith, director of the cardiac transplant programme at the medical centre, who performed the operation, said the “breakthrough surgery brings us one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis.”
“There are simply not enough donor human hearts available to meet the long list of potential recipients,” he was quoted as saying.
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