Deceased patient Lawrence Fawcett – Associated Press
University of Maryland: Lawrence Fawcett, 58, was deemed ineligible for a human heart transplant due to advanced heart disease, so a pig heart transplant was “the only option.”
The second patient in the world to have a genetically modified pig heart transplanted into his body died six weeks after the operation and a year and a half after the death of the first patient who underwent the same procedure. what was announced by the American Medical Center interested in this experiment.
A statement from the University of Maryland in the US on Tuesday explained that Lawrence Fawcett, 58, was deemed ineligible to undergo a human heart transplant due to advanced heart disease, and therefore a pig heart transplant was “the only option”.
“We are saddened by the passing of Fawcett, an exceptional patient, scientist, former Marine and family man who simply wanted to spend more time with his wife, children and family,” said the surgeon who performed the operation.
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The University of Maryland indicated that signs appeared in the patient in recent days that his body was rejecting the transplanted heart after initially accepting it.
The same university conducted a similar operation in January 2022, the first genetically modified pig heart transplant on a human.
The operation raised great hopes at the time, as transplants of animal organs into human bodies provided a solution to the chronic shortage of organ donors. There are currently more than 100,000 Americans on the waiting list for organ transplants.
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Transplants of this type represent a challenge because the recipient’s immune system tends to fight the foreign organ. For this reason, pigs are genetically modified to reduce this risk as well.
Many believe that pigs are best suited to transplanting their organs into the human body due to their size and rapid growth.
Recently, kidney transplants from genetically modified pigs have been performed on brain-dead patients.
The Transplant Institute at NYU Langone Hospital in New York announced last September that it had managed to operate on a deceased person’s pig kidney for 61 days, a record period.