WASHINGTON — A month after a Maryland man became the second person to receive a heart transplant from a pig, hospital video released Friday showed him working toward recovery.
When Lawrence Faucette was dying of heart failure and ineligible for a traditional heart transplant due to other health problems, doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine offered him the highly experimental procedure.
Fawcett was seen for the first time since his Sept. 20 transplant, with hospital footage showing physical therapist Chris Wells urging him to smile while performing stepping exercises to regain strength.
“It’s going to be difficult, but I’ll figure it out,” Fawcett, 58, replied, breathing heavily but smiling.
A Maryland research team last year performed the world’s first transplant of a genetically modified pig’s heart into another dying human. David Bennett lived just two months before his heart failed, for reasons that are not fully understood, although signs of the pig virus were later found in the organs. Lessons from the first experiment led to changes ahead of the second attempt, including better testing for the virus.
Attempts at animal-to-human organ transplants, known as xenotransplantations, have failed for decades because people’s immune systems immediately destroy the foreign tissue. Now, scientists are once again trying to genetically modify pigs to make their organs more like humans.
In Friday’s hospital video, Fawcett’s doctors said the pig’s heart showed no signs of rejection.
“His heart can do everything on its own,” said Dr. Mohammad Mohideen, director of Maryland’s cardiac xenotransplantation team.
A hospital spokesman said Fawcett, who is from Frederick, Maryland, was able to stand. Physical therapists are helping him gain the strength he needs to try to walk.
Many scientists hope that xenotransplantation will one day make up for the huge shortage of human organ donations. More than 100,000 people across the country are waiting for a kidney transplant, most of them are waiting for a kidney transplant, and thousands will die while waiting.
Several scientific teams have tested pig kidneys and hearts in monkeys and donated humans, hoping to gain enough information for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow formal xenotransplantation studies.
The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science & Education Media Group. The Associated Press is solely responsible for all content.
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