By John Ikani
A man who received a first-of-its-kind heart transplant from a genetically modified pig died Tuesday, two months after the groundbreaking procedure.
David Bennett Sr, of Maryland, was 57. In January he underwent the groundbreaking operation – the first of its kind – after being deemed ineligible for a normal heart transplant. For about two months, the heart of a genetically modified pig kept him alive.
For weeks, Mr Bennett appeared to get better, and the Maryland Medical Centre posted updates on his latest activities. In late February, the hospital posted a video of him watching the Super Bowl and faintly singing the national anthem.
He died on Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Centre. Doctors didn’t give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier.
The doctors however noted that they are reviewing what happened. They plan to publish their findings in a scientific journal.
“After it became clear that he would not recover, he was given compassionate palliative care,” the hospital said. “He was able to communicate with his family during his final hours.
Bennett’s son, David Bennett Jr., thanked his father’s doctors in a statement he released through the hospital.
“Their exhaustive efforts and energy, paired with my dad’s insatiable will to live, created a hopeful environment during an uphill climb,” he said.
“Up until the end, my father wanted to continue fighting to preserve his life and spend more time with his beloved family, including his two sisters, his two children, and his five grandchildren, and his cherished dog Lucky. We were able to spend some precious weeks together while he recovered from the transplant surgery, weeks we would not have had without this miraculous effort.”
Doctors for decades have sought to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Bennett, a handyman from Hagerstown, Maryland, was a candidate for this newest attempt only because he otherwise faced certain death — ineligible for a human heart transplant, bedridden and on life support, and out of other options.
Bennett’s transplant was a milestone in the field of xenotransplantation, the sourcing of animal organs to address the human organ supply crisis.
Since then, doctors have implanted kidneys from a gene-edited pig into a brain-dead patient at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
