Former Marine Lawrence Fawcett suffered from end-stage heart failure, making him unsuitable for a human heart transplant. She added that on September 20, a genetically modified pig heart was transplanted to him AP American News Agency.
According to the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the operation was successful, and the transplanted heart worked well for the first month. In mid-October, the man was already back on his feet and began his physical therapy. But in the following days, the 58-year-old showed signs of decline and finally died on Monday.
According to his wife, her husband knew that he would have little time to spend with them and never thought he would live this long. He added: He performed the surgery because he could do it for others. He also asked his doctors to make the most of the operation experience.
For years, they have been researching how organs grown in animals can be used in life-saving transplant interventions. Previous attempts had often failed, because patients’ bodies were not able to accept these organs at all. To prevent rejection, some genes found in pigs were removed from the animal organ while human genes were added.
The first genetically modified pig heart transplant was also performed at the same hospital in January 2022. David Bennett (57 years old) lived with the animal-derived heart for two months. It was not possible to clarify the reason that led to his collapse, but the swine virus was later discovered in his body.
Before transplanting the second genetically modified pig heart, a complete test for the virus was performed, and the result was negative. Currently, they are investigating what exactly caused the problem after the second intervention.
There are more than 100,000 people on the transplant list in the United States, most of them waiting for a kidney. Thousands of people die every year because they do not get the right organ at the right time. Scientists hope that successful organ transplants will be a solution to this problem, as the Associated Press points out.
