University of Maryland surgeons have performed the second successful operation to transplant a pig heart into a human body.
Pakistanis included in the team of surgeons Dr. Mohiuddin has said that the heart of a pig has been used for this operation.
This surgery was done by Dr. Mohiuddin and Dr. Bartaly.
Let’s talk about Dr. Mohiuddin Dr. Mohiuddin belongs to Pakistan, and he has done MBBS from Dow Medical College Karachi.
He received initial surgical training from Civil Hospital Karachi after which he was on a fellowship to America.
The team of surgeons recently performed a second successful heart transplant on a 58-year-old patient, before the team performed the first successful heart transplant, but the patient died two months later of a swine virus. was done.
Operation details
According to the details released by the University of Maryland, what this operation did to Lawrence Fassett, who was suffering from a complex coronary artery disease, made it impossible to transplant another human heart into his body due to medical reasons.
According to Dr. Griffith, the only way to save Faust’s life was a pig heart transplant, for which his team received special permission from the US Food and Drug Administration.
“Through this operation, we have tried to add a few years to the life of a patient with a complex heart disease who would have lived a few months or a few weeks,” says Dr. Griffith. The patients who understood this operation and its complications cooperated with us and we were able to cross another milestone in medical science.
What changes were made for the second heart transplant?
Pakistani Dr. Mohiuddin is a cardiac surgeon at the University of Maryland and scientific director of the Xenotransplantation Program. He says that the process of transplanting animal organs into humans is called xenotransplantation.
According to Dr. Mohiuddin, in 2022, his team performed the first operation to implant a pig heart in a human, although the patient died after two months, from this experience, his team gained very important information. The FDA authorized another operation by his team based on the same data.
How organ rejection is prevented?
Dr. Mohiuddin explains that in the transplantation of animal organs in humans, pig organs have been given priority, it is one of our genetic ancestors, but the biggest problem in this process is that the immune system of the human body rejects the donor organ. Does
To solve this problem, he says, the pig heart used in the second heart transplant was genetically engineered to have 10 genetic changes, including three genes associated with the immediate response. These genes would immediately reject heart transplants in the human body.
Dr. Mohiuddin further said that instead of these three genes, six non-human genes were inserted into the hearts of the pigs, which were related to inhibiting the immune system’s reaction and acceptance of the donor organ. was expelled from the heart, causing the heart tissues to grow faster than normal.
Future developments
According to Dr. Mohiuddin, xenotransplantation is rapidly gaining a place in the process of organ transplantation in the United States alone. 17 such patients die every day, he adds, adding that he is confident that xenotransplantation, given the results of successful operations in this era, will be approved by the FDA for clinical trials in the next few years, after which thousands of lives will be saved. It will be possible to save.
What Does Patient Lawrence Fasset Says?
According to information released by the University of Maryland, the patient, Lawrence Faust, was admitted to the hospital on September 14 after suffering from heart failure and coronary artery complications. They were fully informed about the complications during and after the operation.
A week after the operation, Faseet is recovering rapidly. Before the operation, he said he wanted to spend a few more years with his family and his last hope is a heart transplant, but he still has another one. There is hope and opportunity and they believe that this operation will succeed.