Lawrence Faucette, the second living person to receive a genetically modified pig heart in a transplant, has died six weeks after the experimental procedure. The University of Maryland Medical Center, where the experimental procedure had been performed, said the heart began to show signs of rejection in recent days.
“Mr. Faucette’s last wish was for us to make the most of what we have learned from our experience, so others may be guaranteed a chance for a new heart when a human organ is unavailable. He then told the team of doctors and nurses who gathered around him that he loved us. We will miss him tremendously,” Dr. Bartley Griffith, clinical director of the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in a statement. Griffith had performed the experimental surgery.
I’m just curious if you have data behind this?
My understanding is that rejection related deaths in solid organ transplant recipients is only ~18% and that it is actually trending downward.
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That’s not actually how it works. Rejection of a transplanted organ means the body is developing antibodies against the organ.
Successful dosing and continued use of immunosuppressants inhibit the body from “rejecting” the transplanted organ(s).
I suspect you’re operating off a commonly held idea that transplanted organs have a “shelf life” but that’s not really true.
It’s important to keep in mind that transplanting organs is still comparatively new medical science (only about 70 years old) and that transplants are often for older patients or patients with other underlying conditions that caused the original organ failure to begin with.