Surgeons in the United States have successfully transplanted a pig’s heart into a human patient’s body. This is indeed a spectacular first for the history of medical research and health science, the accomplishment of which might possibly eliminate the decades-long wait for functional organ transplants from animals to humans.
The extremely risky procedure was carried out on the 57years old, Maryland citizen David Bennett at the University of Maryland Medicine (UMM) after all other options for preserving his survival had already been explored.
According to media reports, the doctors proceeded only with transplant as a very last effort to keep him living on, on early January 7 following gaining permission from the United States health officials on a humanitarian basis. According to the hospital, such authorization is only essential when an exploratory and research medicinal product seems to be the only choice accessible for a patient that is suffering from such a severe or life-threatening health condition.
“It was either death or this transplant.” I want to live. “I do realize it’s a gamble, but it’s my final option,” David Bennett is believed to have stated the day before the transplantation was carried out.
Bennett is reportedly reacting very well to the transplantation so far, according to the doctors. However, it is still too early to call the procedure a success. Doctors had said he was getting constantly monitored to see how the replacement organ is working and reacting to his body.
Although the operation might have received substantial attention throughout the mainstream press, scientists and experts of the field have pointed out that there are still quite several uncertainties around its effectiveness as well as safeness that really need to be addressed. According to CNN, Art Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University stated that ”this is too early to declare the heart transplant a triumph or anything, and that it remains to be seen whether Bennett does indeed have a good living for the time to come.”