Doctors achieved a medical first
Why it matters: The fact that the heart in 57-year-old Dave
Bennett's body is beating today is "nothing short of a miracle,"
according to his son, and we at WYWW have to agree. That's because his body is
being powered by a heart from a genetically modified pig. The organ was
transplanted Friday at the University of Maryland Medical Center, and Bennett
is now breathing on his own and will soon be weaned off a machine that helps
pump blood through his body.
While not exactly a household term, xenotransplantation landed on
the public radar in September, when a pig kidney was transplanted into a human,
but in that case the recipient was brain dead. There is still much progress to
be made before xenotransplantation is ready for routine use, but Bennett's
surgery offers new hope for more than 100,000 people who are waiting for organ
transplants, some of whom will die before an organ becomes available, and for
the myriad others like Bennett who do not qualify for waitlists. -- Melissa Turner
Full Story: USA
Today (1/11)
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