Hypothesis on the cause of death of pig heart transplant recipients
A heart transplant, or heart transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed in patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease when other medical or surgical treatments have failed.
Heart failure, animal virus infection, or the discontinuation of immunosuppressive drugs may be the cause of death of the first patient with a pig heart transplant.
David Bennett, 57, is the first person in the world to receive a pig heart transplant.
The surgery, which took place in January at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, had been a hope for experts and scientists.
However, two months later, the patient died.
To date, there are many scientific questions about the death. Doctors were unable to fully explain what caused Bennett’s death, although the patient had recovered.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on June 22, suggested that the patient died of heart failure.
However, scientists were unable to determine why the pig’s heart in Bennett’s body thickened and lost the ability to pump blood after seven weeks.
Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, a professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said it remains a “mystery.”
According to the researchers, another factor that led to his death was Bennett’s suspension of the use of an immunosuppressive drug. The drug helps prevent postoperative rejection.
This is the phenomenon of the transplanter’s immune system rejecting, attacking and destroying the transplanted organ or tissue.
