Hausing as a world premiere, this xenotransplantation with a genetically modified animal heart allowed a two-month survival to the American patient, finally died on March 8th.
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David Bennett, a 57-year-old American who lived for two months with a genetically modified heart of pork died Tuesday, March 8. “His condition began to deteriorate several days ago. When it became clear that he did not recover, he received palliative care. He could communicate with his family during his last hours,” says, In a statement, the Maryland University Hospital where this xenograft was carried out (transplantation from another animal species), the first of its kind in the world with a genetically modified heart.
Insufficient cardiac at a terminal stage, David Bennett was hospitalized in October 2021, and was first treated by a so-called ECMO procedure (for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation): an extracorporeal circulation circuit with a membrane. ‘Ensure the oxygenation of the blood and the elimination of co 2 .
ineligible for conventional cardiac transplantation, but also to an artificial cardiac pump system, this patient had agreed to benefit from an experimental transplant of a pork heart. The procedure, authorized urgently by the Food and Drug Administration (American health authorities), was carried out on January 7 by the Surgeons Bartley Griffith and Muhammad Mohiuddin.
A heart named uheart
To make this heart named uheart, the American firm revivor modified a dozen genes of the porcine organ, with genome editing techniques. Three genes responsible for the rapid rejection of pork organs by humans have been eliminated. In addition, six human genes responsible for the immune acceptance of the pork heart have been inserted into the genome. Finally, an additional gene has been removed in the animal, in order to avoid excessive growth of the cardiac tissue of the pork. The patient then received an immunosuppressive treatment, also experimental.
Announced after a period of a few days, this first has been very publicized and greeted as a prowess by the medical world. The survival of the patient beyond seventy-twelve hours with a functional heart meant that there had been no hyperately rejection of the body, one of the main risks of species transplants, with infections .
The first attempts of xenograms began at the beginning of the XX e century, with a monkey kidney transplantation. In the 1980s, California, a little girl of about 1 year – Baby Fae – had received a heart of baboon, and had succumbed in three weeks, because of a phenomenon of immune rejection.
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