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Surgeons in the United States have achieved the world’s second successful transplant of a genetically modified pig’s heart into a human recipient. The groundbreaking surgery was performed on Lawrence Faucette, a 58-year-old patient with terminal heart disease, according to a statement from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).<\/p>\n
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In 2022, the same Maryland team conducted the world’s first transplant of a genetically modified pig’s heart into David Bennett, another patient with severe heart disease. Unfortunately, Bennett passed away just two months after the procedure.<\/p>\n
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Lawrence Faucette was considered ineligible for a traditional human heart transplant due to pre-existing peripheral vascular disease and complications with internal bleeding. Therefore, the pig’s heart transplant became the only viable option.<\/p>\n
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval for the surgery on September 15, utilizing its single-patient investigational new drug (IND) “compassionate use” pathway. This approval process is employed when an experimental medical product is the sole option available for a patient facing a severe or life-threatening medical condition.<\/p>\n
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The pig’s heart used in the surgery was provided by Revivicor, a company based in Blacksburg, Virginia, and has undergone ten genetic modifications to make it more compatible with the human immune system by knocking out certain pig genes and introducing human genes.<\/p>\n
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As of now, Lawrence Faucette is breathing without assistance, and his heart is functioning well without the need for supportive devices. He is in recovery and able to communicate with his loved ones. This historic achievement marks only the second time in the world that a genetically modified pig’s heart has been transplanted into a living patient.<\/p>\n
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Dr. Bartley P. Griffith, who led both transplant procedures, expressed gratitude to Faucette for his bravery and willingness to contribute to the advancement of medical knowledge in this field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Surgeons in the United States have achieved the world’s second successful transplant of a genetically modified pig’s heart into a human recipient. The groundbreaking surgery was performed on Lawrence Faucette, a 58-year-old patient with terminal heart disease, according to a statement from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). In 2022, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":2441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2442,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440\/revisions\/2442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}