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American surgeons have successfully transplanted a heart from a genetically modified pig into a patient, a world first, the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced on Monday. This operation could be the solution to the shortage of organ donors.
This is a world first. A 57-year-old American, terminally ill with heart disease, received a transplant of a genetically modified porcine heart three days ago, his doctors reported Monday (Jan. 10). He is now closely monitored to ensure that the new organ is functioning properly.
The intervention, carried out by a team from the Maryland School of Medicine, is one of the first to demonstrate the feasibility of a pig-to-human heart transplant, a breakthrough made possible by new tools for gene editing.
To carry out this intervention, the medical school obtained emergency authorization from the United States Federal Health Authority (FDA) on December 31, when it was the last resort for the patient, David Bennett. He had been declared ineligible to receive a human transplant.
“It was either death or this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s pretty hit and miss, but it was my last option,” the Maryland resident said a day before his operation, according to the school. of Medicine. “I can’t wait to be able to get out of bed once I’m well,” said David Bennett, who has spent the last few months bedridden and hooked up to a machine that kept him alive.
Coping with the organ donor shortage
The pig, from which the transplanted heart comes, has been genetically modified to no longer produce a type of sugar that is normally present in all cells of pigs and which causes immediate rejection of the organ.
The genetic modification was made by the company Revivicor, which also provided a pig kidney that surgeons had successfully connected to the blood vessels of a brain-dead patient in New York City in October.
The transplanted porcine heart had been stored in a machine before the operation and the team also used an experimental new drug from Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, in addition to the usual anti-rejection drugs, to suppress the immune system and prevent that the body rejects the organ.
If the transplant proves successful, scientists hope that porcine organs can be used to help offset the shortage of organ donors.
“This is a major surgical breakthrough and one that brings us one step closer to a solution to the organ shortage,” said chief surgeon Bartley Griffith in a statement. “We are moving with caution, but we are also optimistic that this world-first operation will provide an important new option for patients in the future.”
According to the site organdonor.gov, approximately 110,000 people in the United States are awaiting an organ transplant. More than 6,000 patients die each year from lack of organ donation.
Ideal organ donors
Xenografts – from animal to human – are not new. Doctors have attempted cross-species transplants since at least the 17th centurye century, the first experiments focusing on primates.
In 1984, a baboon heart was transplanted into a baby, but the little one, nicknamed “Baby Fae”, only survived 20 days.
Pig heart valves are thus already widely used in humans, and their skin can be used for grafts on severe burns. Pigs are ideal organ donors in particular due to their size, rapid growth and litters, which have lots of young.
In addition, the use of porcine organs is better accepted because pigs are already used for food, Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Institute of Transplantation, told AFP in October.
With AFP and Reuters
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