David Bennett, 57, has been living for three days with a pig heart. Doctors transplanted the organ in a last ditch to save Bennett’s life, who has been bedridden on a heart-lung bypass machine. The procedure took nine hours to complete. Bennett is breathing on his own without a ventilator, but is still using a ECMO machine that helps pump blood throughout his body. Doctors hope to wean him off the device slowly.
Bennett is breathing on his own without a ventilator, but is still using a Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine that helps pump blood throughout his body. Doctors hope to wean him off the device slowly.
Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center say the transplant showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in the human body without immediate rejection.
And this medical first could one day help solve the chronic shortage of organ donations.
