Man who had world’s second pig heart transplant dies as body rejects organ
A man who was the second person in the world to receive a pig heart transplant has died 40 days after the procedure.
Lawrence Faucette, 58, appeared to be healthy for the first month but his body showed signs of rejection in recent days and he died on Monday, Maryland doctors said.
Faucette agreed to the experimental surgery and received a genetically modified pig heart on September 20.
His wife, Ann, said ‘he never imagined he would survive as long as he did’.
Faucette ‘knew his time with us was short and this was his last chance to do for others’, Ann stated from the hospital.
A surgeon who led the transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center stated on Tuesday that ‘Mr Faucette’s last wish was for us to make the most of what we have learned from our experience’.
The Maryland doctors performed the world’s first transplant of a genetically altered pig heart into David Bennett last year. Bennett lived for two months before heart failure. Signs of a pig virus were found in the organ, but the reason for his death has not been fully determined.
Faucette’s death was a blow to animal organ transplant work, which scientists hoped could help save lives amid a shortage of human organ donations.
Xenotransplants, the name for animal-to-human organ transplants, have for decades been unsuccessful as the human immune system destroys foreign tissue. Scientists hoped that genetically modifying pig parts to make them more like human organs would work.
Faucette, of Frederick, Maryland, was a father-of-two and a Navy veteran.
In mid-October, the hospital released footage of Faucette doing physical therapy to try to walk again.
Faucette was not able to receive a human heart transplant because he had other medical issues. He had wished to spend more time with his family.
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