The second patient in the world to receive a heart transplant from a genetically modified pig died six weeks after his operation, and a year and a half after the death of the first patient, announced the American medical center which carried out the operation .
The 58-year-old had been deemed ineligible for a human heart transplant due to advanced heart disease. A pig heart transplant was “the only option”, according to a press release from the University of Maryland, in the United States, published Tuesday October 31. While the graft initially appeared to take, the patient began showing signs of rejection in recent days, the University of Maryland noted.
The establishment had already carried out the world’s first transplant of a genetically modified pig heart into a human, in January 2022. The transplant had raised high hopes, because such xenografts (grafts from an animal to a human) could allow to address the shortage of organ donations. Currently, more than 100,000 Americans are on the waiting list for a transplant.
Pigs represent ideal organ donors
These xenografts represent a real challenge because the recipient’s immune system tends to attack the foreign organ. It is to reduce this risk that pig organs are genetically modified.
For many, pigs represent ideal organ donors due to their size, rapid growth and litters of many young. Kidney transplants from genetically modified pigs have recently also been carried out on brain dead patients.
The Transplant Institute at NYU Langone Hospital in New York announced in September that a pig kidney transplanted into a brain-dead patient had functioned for a record sixty-one days.