![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/a-surgeon-in-the-village-cover-photo_custom-69406bff50914a2eba5d14b14f83a519a66ab3a8-s900-c85-696x462-696x462.jpg\" "\\"a-surgeon-in-the-village-cover-photo_custom-69406bff50914a2eba5d14b14f83a519a66ab3a8-s900-c85-696x462.jpg\\"\/")
<\/div>\nSurgeons have successfully\u00a0transplanted\u00a0a genetically modified pig\u2019s heart into a human being for the first time ever offering hope to thousands in need of organs. <\/p>\n
David Bennett, who had a life-threatening condition underwent the groundbreaking nine-hour operation last Friday in Baltimore at the University of Maryland Medical Centre.<\/p>\n
In the first three days since receiving the organ, the 57-year-old has shown no signs of rejection.<\/p>\n
Speaking of the procedure, Dr Bartley Griffith, the director of the cardiac\u00a0transplant\u00a0program at the centre and who conducted the operation, said: \u201cIt creates the pulse, it creates the pressure, it is his heart.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s working and it looks normal. We are thrilled, but we don\u2019t know what tomorrow will bring us.
\u201cThis has never been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Bennett agreed to be the first to risk the experimental surgery in December, hoping it would give him a new life.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is nothing short of a miracle,\u201d his son David Jr said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what my dad needed and that\u2019s what I feel like he got.\u201d<\/p>\n Doctors replaced his heart with one from a one-year-old, 17-stone pig gene-edited and bred specifically for this purpose.<\/p>\n Dr Griffith said he first mentioned the experimental treatment last month, saying it was a \u201cmemorable\u201d and \u201cpretty strange\u201d conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018We can\u2019t give you a human heart. You don\u2019t qualify. But maybe we can use one from an animal, a pig,\u201d Dr Griffith recalled. \u201cIt\u2019s never been done before, but we think we can do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure he was understanding me,\u201d the doctor added. \u201cThen he said, \u2018Well, will I oink?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n So far, Mr Bennett is breathing on his own without a ventilator, though he remains on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine that is doing about half the work of pumping blood throughout his body. Mr Bennett decided to undergo the pioneering surgery on the experimental treatment because he would have died without a new heart, had exhausted other treatments and was too sick to qualify for a human donor heart, family members and doctors said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a watershed event,\u201d said Dr David Klassen, the chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing, who was formerly a transplant surgeon at the University of Maryland.<\/p>\n \u201cDoors are starting to open that will lead, I believe, to major changes in how we treat organ failure.\u201d<\/p>\n Scientists have been working for decades to discover how to save human lives with animal organs.<\/p>\n Pigs have similar organs to humans.<\/p>\n If their organs could be used in transplants, the waitlist for thousands of people would end.<\/p>\n Doctors say, patients who would never be considered candidates for transplants \u2013 who never make it onto those transplant lists \u2013 could suddenly look forward to a longer life.<\/p>\n In the UK there are currently around 370 people waiting for a heart transplant.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"Doctors](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1_David-Bennett.jpg\")
![\"Medics](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1641909775_207_1_David-Bennett.jpg\")
Doctors plan to slowly wean him off.<\/p>\n![\"Muhammad](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/0_David-Bennett.jpg\")