Pig Heart Transplant
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Three Weeks Later
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2341118/pig-to-human-heart-transplant-the-holy-grail-of-surgery
ET: In medical terms, how is the patient doing now with a new heart?
Dr Mohiuddin: David Bennett, our patient, is improving. We have not witnessed any problem with the heart. It is contracting and functioning as we had expected. I explain it by telling people it is like installing a BMW’s engine in an old car. So, there is no issue with the heart. But, you know, this patient, who has been severely deconditioned because of his prolonged illness he was on bed for two months in our hospital. And out of those two months, he was on this machine called the ECMO machine, also known as extracorporeal life support, which functions as a heart. Though his kidneys and other organs were functioning fine, overall, this person was in a very bad shape. So, our major concern was, based on our previous experiments, we were sure that this heart will, you know, work well. But our main concern is whether or not his body will be able to support this heart.
ET: What challenges will the patient face in the future?
Dr Mohiuddin: One of the major challenges is a compliance. At 57, he came to us with a failing heart because he was not taking blood pressure medications. We were even asked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA): If the hospital cannot trust this patient with a human heart, how can he be trusted with a pig’s heart and whether he would even take prescribed medications,which would be required as long as the heart is functional.
We have great hopes that this person has received a new lease of life. We are trying to educate him, and we will follow him, even if we have to visit his house to make sure that he's taking his medicine because this is a very precious experiment and a lot of experiments coming later will depend on the success of this experiment. To me, being able to conduct this experiment is a success. Every passing day is a success, but for long-term use of this heart, this patient has to be compliant, and a strict check needs to be done. So, I think that is the biggest challenge before us.
ET: When do you think this patient will be able to live a normal life right now?
Dr Mohiuddin: He was on support. We have managed to remove the support he was on That was done gradually. When we were confident that his heart can support his life other breathing machines were also removed. He is talking at this point and receiving all the required medical attention. But even if it was a human-to-human transplant, the normal transplant, it takes a while for the patient to be able live on his / her own. It will take at least a month ICU care, and then maybe a month of rehab, because all his muscles have become very weak due to inactivity. So, at this point he cannot even walk by himself. But with a lot of physiotherapy, rehab and if all goes well, we are hoping he should be back home in the next two months.
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Yeah, even regular transplants that happen after a month of ECMO have long recovery times.
By contrast I was out of ICU in 2 days, out of hospital in 14. Did a 5k (walk mostly) at 3months.
"You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."
-Cormac McCarthy -
Yeah, even regular transplants that happen after a month of ECMO have long recovery times.
By contrast I was out of ICU in 2 days, out of hospital in 14. Did a 5k (walk mostly) at 3months.
@jon-nyc said in Heart Transplant:
Yeah, even regular transplants that happen after a month of ECMO have long recovery times.
By contrast I was out of ICU in 2 days, out of hospital in 14. Did a 5k (walk mostly) at 3months.
That's wicked good.
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@jon-nyc said in Heart Transplant:
Yeah, even regular transplants that happen after a month of ECMO have long recovery times.
By contrast I was out of ICU in 2 days, out of hospital in 14. Did a 5k (walk mostly) at 3months.
That's wicked good.
@jolly said in Heart Transplant:
@jon-nyc said in Heart Transplant:
Yeah, even regular transplants that happen after a month of ECMO have long recovery times.
By contrast I was out of ICU in 2 days, out of hospital in 14. Did a 5k (walk mostly) at 3months.
That's wicked good.
Thanks. The 5k in particular, even though I walked much of it I still finished in 39m. Other guys get out of the hospital in 2 weeks or so. But I don’t know any who were as recovered at 3mo.
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Long and fascinating article about this transplant, and also a long look at the history of organ transplantation.
The article mentions the team at Duke, perhaps @jon-nyc knows some of these people.
By the way, the heart surgeons I used to work with (we didn't do transplants at our place - no infrastructure support), all said that the surgery is technically pretty simple. You're sewing big things to big things, after all - not like coronary bypass.
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Weird that you posted about this today. I just read that the guy died.
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Weird that you posted about this today. I just read that the guy died.
@taiwan_girl said in Heart Transplant:
Weird that you posted about this today. I just read that the guy died.
Yep, I saw that too.
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The transplant patient died.
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The transplant patient died.
do the dark humor jokes go here or in the designated thread?I'm sorry to hear that.
It was brave that he decided to be a guinea pig.
