There is no rejection and you can exercise your muscles by riding an indoor bicycle.
Entered 2023.10.21 18:37 Views 328 Entered 2023.10.21 18:37 Views 328
Lawrence Fawcett (58), the second person in history to receive a pig heart transplant, is talking with his wife before the surgery. [사진= 메릴랜드 의대 제공]CNN reported on the 20th (local time), one month after the surgery, that the heart of a terminally ill heart disease patient who underwent the second surgery to transplant a heart from a genetically modified pig into a human was functioning on its own and showing no signs of rejection.
Professor Bartley Griffith of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMMC), who performed the pig heart transplant surgery on Lawrence Fawcett (58) on the 20th of last month, said, “At present, no evidence of infection or rejection has been found,” and “We believe his heart function is impaired.” “I think it’s very excellent,” he said. Professor Griffiths explained that although Mr Fawcett was not yet able to stand on his own, he was able to get out of bed with minimal assistance.
“We are stopping all medications that were initially supporting his heart,” said Professor Muhammad Mohiuddin, director of UMMC’s Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program. “The focus now is to ensure that Mr. Fawcett has the strength to perform his daily functions.” He said he would do it. He said Mr Fawcett had “been undergoing physical therapy diligently to regain some of the strength he has lost over the past month of hospitalization”. UMMC also released a video showing Mr. Fawcett receiving physical therapy, including riding an indoor bicycle to improve leg strength.
Fawcett, a reservist who served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and a father of two children, was first admitted to UMMC on September 14 after experiencing symptoms of heart failure. While he was hospitalized, his heart stopped twice, but he was able to be revived thanks to the automatic external defibrillator in his room. He was unable to receive a conventional human heart transplant due to his heart disease and pre-existing conditions, so he chose a genetically modified pig heart transplant.
This experimental xenograft surgery has been recognized and approved as a program of last resort for “patients with serious or immediately life-threatening diseases or conditions when there are no comparable or satisfactory alternative treatment options.”
The pig heart used was extracted from genetically modified pigs raised at a farm in Blacksburg, Virginia, by ‘Revivicor’, a subsidiary of ‘United Therapeutics Corporation’, an American biotechnology company. Ten genes were edited in pig blood cells, including knocking out three pig genes to remove alpha-gal sugar, which can cause organ rejection in the human immune system. Additionally, six human genes were added to increase immune system acceptance when transplanted into humans.
The FDA first approved the potential therapeutic use and consumption of gene-edited pigs in 2020. Mohiuddin and Professor Griffiths performed the first experimental surgery on David Bennett, who was 57 years old at the time, in January last year, but Bennett died two months after the surgery. Although there were no signs of rejection in the early weeks after the transplant, an autopsy concluded that Bennett ultimately died of heart failure due to “complicated factors” after the surgery.
Bennett had already been hospitalized for six weeks and was receiving cardiopulmonary bypass prior to the transplant. However, a case study published in The Lancet found evidence of infection with a previously unidentified pig virus.
There are more than 113,000 people on the U.S. organ transplant waiting list, including about 3,300 who need a heart. According to Donate Life America, an organ transplant support group, in the United States, up to 17 people die every day while waiting for an organ donation.
2023-10-21 09:37:16
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