57-year old David Bennet passed on just two months after receiving a genetically modified heart of a pig.
Bennett is said to have died while at a hospital in Maryland, United States on Tuesday after his health began deteriorating a few days ago. Doctors however did not reveal the exact cause of his death.
According to a statement from the hospital on Wednesday, Bennett was placed under compassionate palliative care when it was established that he would not recover.
“We are devastated by the loss of Mr Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end,” read a statement by Dr. Bartley Griffith, who performed the surgery at the Baltimore hospital.
The deceased was the first ever human to be given the heart of an animal. The operation was conducted on January 7, 2022.
Doctors resolved doing so since he was not eligible for a human heart transplant and would have died then if the transplant would not have been done.
Surgeons at the hospital modified the pig’s heart by removing the pig genes that would make the human body reject it and replacing them with human’s genes.
The move was such a success and was seen as a way of dealing with the problem of organ shortage.
“There are simply not enough donor human hearts available to meet the long list of potential recipients. We are proceeding cautiously, but we are also optimistic that this first-in-the-world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future,” Dr. Griffith said in a statement after the surgery.
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