University of Maryland's first "pig heart transplant" successful human operation could solve long-term organ shortage?
“Pig heart transplant” surgery successfully saves man with life-threatening arrhythmia, setting precedent
Thanks to advances in medicine and technology, the operation of “organ transplantation” is simpler and safer than it was a few decades ago. Most organ transplant surgeries rely on living donor organs; however, the first case of a “genetically modified pig” heart transplanted into a human body recently occurred in Baltimore, USA, shocking the global medical community.
On January 8, 2022, Dr. Bartley Griffith, a surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center in the United States, successfully implanted a donor pig heart into the critically ill patient David Bennett through surgery. David Bennett, 58, was hospitalized with severe arrhythmia and could only survive through extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. He had been hospitalized and bedridden for the previous few months.
David Bennett was originally considered ineligible for an artificial heart transplant due to severe arrhythmia. If a heart transplant is not available, Bennett will face a fate equivalent to being declared dead. When he knew a donor pig heart transplant was a last resort, he took the plunge and signed the transplant consent form. The medical team immediately sought emergency authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Donor pig heart genetic compilation and human body fit expert assessment: Organ shortage problem will be solved
According to a press release from the University of Maryland, the donor pig’s heart was genetically edited to varying degrees 10 times. The part of the human body that produces antibodies against pig organs is removed, and six compatible immune gene sequences are written into the pig’s heart. In addition, the growth genes in the donor pigs were removed to prevent overgrowth of the donor pig’s heart tissue.
After the surgical team moved the donor pig heart provided by the regenerative medicine company Revivicor into the laboratory, Dr. Bartley Griffith removed the pig’s heart on the morning of the operation. During the surgery, the team used new and traditional anti-rejection drugs interchangeably to prevent the immune system from rejecting the foreign organ.
After a seven-hour organ transplant procedure, the transplant operation was declared successful. David Bennett woke up on January 11 and was able to breathe on his own. However, Dr. Bartley Griffith believes that it is too early to say that the operation is successful, and the team needs to pay close attention to David Bennett’s condition in the next few days, weeks, or even months.
Christine Lau, chief of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said that the difficulty of this operation can be said to be “unprecedented” and more immunosuppressive procedures need to be performed to have a chance of success. Christine Lau is optimistic that the success of this operation reveals one of the ways that medicine can potentially solve the long-term organ shortage problem in the future, or allow more patients to be properly treated.
Are there “ethical” concerns about using animal organ transplants? Animal protection groups: unethical and a waste of resources
News of the medical procedure of pig heart transplantation into humans has spread. The practice of organ transplantation through donor pigs is still considered by some groups to be “unethical” and harmful to animal rights. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has condemned donor pig heart transplants as unethical, dangerous and a waste of resources.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals states that animals are not “accessories” to humans, but independent individuals with autonomous consciousness. Modifying animal genes to make them more human-like is wrong. They believe that animals have the right to live their own lives without the pain and trauma of genetic manipulation, or even being killed and their organs harvested.
Dr. Katrien Devolder, a bioethics researcher at Oxford University in the UK, believes that raising pigs to produce meat actually costs more money than using them to save lives. However, this is not a reason to ignore animal welfare. To ensure that animals do not suffer unnecessary harm, relevant units should set regulations to ensure that only gene-edited pigs are used as targets for organ transplants.
source:
Why pig-to-human heart transplant is for now only a last resort
Three ethical issues around pig heart transplants
Man gets genetically-modified pig heart in world-first transplant
