Pig Heart Transplant
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Pig-Heart Transplants in Two Brain-Dead People Offer Chance to Improve Tests for Pig Viruses
Two brain-dead individuals received genetically modified pig-heart transplants, part of growing efforts by scientists who want to improve tests on pig organs for pig viruses and gather data that could help launch clinical trials of animal-to-human organ transplants.
Scientists at NYU Langone Health, where the research studies took place in June and July, said the pig hearts were flown from a facility hundreds of miles away and then transplanted into two recently deceased individuals, Lawrence Kelly, 72, a former welder from Beaver Meadows, Pa., and Alva Capuano, 64, a former teacher from New York City.
Mr. Kelly was driving alone in his car when he suffered a heart attack, according to his fiancée, Alice Michael. Ms. Capuano, who had been the recipient of a kidney transplant from her son many years ago, had a heart attack while at home, said her husband, Richard Capuano.
Both individuals were later declared brain-dead and maintained on ventilators. Their families agreed to donate their bodies to science, to take part in the research studies. In the U.S., brain death is defined as the irreversible cessation of all brain function, even if heart and lung activity can be maintained with machines.
The studies focused on gathering data about how the pig hearts functioned as well as implementing a new set of strategies to test for and prevent the transmission of pig viruses—a longtime area of concern by the Food and Drug Administration that has intensified in the wake of the death of a Maryland man who in January was transplanted with a pig heart that was later discovered to have a pig virus in it.
In the NYU studies, researchers used a newly created infectious-disease protocol designed to help ensure that pig viruses weren’t transmitted to the research subjects who received the hearts or the team of health providers involved in the experiments.
The pig hearts weren’t immediately rejected by the recipients’ bodies and functioned for the duration of the three-day studies, according to Nader Moazami, surgical director of heart transplantation at NYU Langone Health, who led the pig-heart procedures. The data haven’t been published yet or peer-reviewed.
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Pig-Heart Transplants in Two Brain-Dead People Offer Chance to Improve Tests for Pig Viruses
Two brain-dead individuals received genetically modified pig-heart transplants, part of growing efforts by scientists who want to improve tests on pig organs for pig viruses and gather data that could help launch clinical trials of animal-to-human organ transplants.
Scientists at NYU Langone Health, where the research studies took place in June and July, said the pig hearts were flown from a facility hundreds of miles away and then transplanted into two recently deceased individuals, Lawrence Kelly, 72, a former welder from Beaver Meadows, Pa., and Alva Capuano, 64, a former teacher from New York City.
Mr. Kelly was driving alone in his car when he suffered a heart attack, according to his fiancée, Alice Michael. Ms. Capuano, who had been the recipient of a kidney transplant from her son many years ago, had a heart attack while at home, said her husband, Richard Capuano.
Both individuals were later declared brain-dead and maintained on ventilators. Their families agreed to donate their bodies to science, to take part in the research studies. In the U.S., brain death is defined as the irreversible cessation of all brain function, even if heart and lung activity can be maintained with machines.
The studies focused on gathering data about how the pig hearts functioned as well as implementing a new set of strategies to test for and prevent the transmission of pig viruses—a longtime area of concern by the Food and Drug Administration that has intensified in the wake of the death of a Maryland man who in January was transplanted with a pig heart that was later discovered to have a pig virus in it.
In the NYU studies, researchers used a newly created infectious-disease protocol designed to help ensure that pig viruses weren’t transmitted to the research subjects who received the hearts or the team of health providers involved in the experiments.
The pig hearts weren’t immediately rejected by the recipients’ bodies and functioned for the duration of the three-day studies, according to Nader Moazami, surgical director of heart transplantation at NYU Langone Health, who led the pig-heart procedures. The data haven’t been published yet or peer-reviewed.
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@Renauda said in Pig Heart Transplant:
Democrats, eh?
There'd be little point in transplanting Republican hearts as they don't have one in the first place.
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A new chapter in artificial heart development unfolded Thursday in Houston, where officials at the Texas Heart Institute announced they had successfully implanted a novel device that they hope can become the first long-term solution for patients with advanced heart failure.
The device — a rotary-powered, hand-sized artificial heart — whirred inside a 58-year-old man’s chest for eight days, helping him maintain normal vital signs and organ function until he received a lifesaving heart transplant on July 17. The man, who had suffered from end-stage heart failure and was not available for interviews, became the first of five candidates who will test the device’s safety and feasibility as part of a Food and Drug Administration study.
The trial run was hailed by Texas Heart officials as “groundbreaking” at a Thursday news conference, and not because the device served as a temporary option for a transplant candidate. Current versions of the device already serve that function. Its use represented a major step toward loftier ambitions: replacing the need for a heart transplant at all.
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Current iterations act more like a human heart, with a flexible polymer material that pulsates as blood flows in and out of the device through air-powered pumps, which pierce the stomach.
No, they pierce the abdomen. The stomach is an organ.
But, on to the BiVACOR
It relies on a single, continuously spinning rotor, suspended by an electromagnet inside a titanium casing. Like the current artificial hearts, it relies on a controller that sits outside the body and is tethered by a cord through the skin.
Questions:
- Does the patient need anticoagulation?
- It's not pulsatile, like a real heart. So there's no real "blood pressure," with a high and a low pressure during each cycle. Back in the day, I was under the impression that non-pulsatile flow is not a good thing. I can't seem to find anything recent (less than 6 years) to indicate that that thinking has changed.
- This is intended to be a semi-permanent solution for heart failure. 10 years? I question the morbidity (and mortality) of having to go in and replace the worn-out device with a new one in a patient who is already compromised.
- This is reported as a "transition device" between explant of the patient's heart and transplantation of a new heart. The article says that it was in for 8 days. What happens when you can't find a suitable donor for 9 days, or a month?
Get off my lawn.
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Current iterations act more like a human heart, with a flexible polymer material that pulsates as blood flows in and out of the device through air-powered pumps, which pierce the stomach.
No, they pierce the abdomen. The stomach is an organ.
But, on to the BiVACOR
It relies on a single, continuously spinning rotor, suspended by an electromagnet inside a titanium casing. Like the current artificial hearts, it relies on a controller that sits outside the body and is tethered by a cord through the skin.
Questions:
- Does the patient need anticoagulation?
- It's not pulsatile, like a real heart. So there's no real "blood pressure," with a high and a low pressure during each cycle. Back in the day, I was under the impression that non-pulsatile flow is not a good thing. I can't seem to find anything recent (less than 6 years) to indicate that that thinking has changed.
- This is intended to be a semi-permanent solution for heart failure. 10 years? I question the morbidity (and mortality) of having to go in and replace the worn-out device with a new one in a patient who is already compromised.
- This is reported as a "transition device" between explant of the patient's heart and transplantation of a new heart. The article says that it was in for 8 days. What happens when you can't find a suitable donor for 9 days, or a month?
Get off my lawn.
@George-K Thanks for the realistic feedback on this!!
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Likely there are many other big problems, but I am curious about this: psychologically, how does the patient feel about being alive without having a pulse?
I feel weird just thinking about it. :man-shrugging:
@Axtremus said in Pig Heart Transplant:
Likely there are many other big problems, but I am curious about this: psychologically, how does the patient feel about being alive without having a pulse?
I feel weird just thinking about it. :man-shrugging
It beats the alternative
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@Axtremus said in Pig Heart Transplant:
Likely there are many other big problems, but I am curious about this: psychologically, how does the patient feel about being alive without having a pulse?
I feel weird just thinking about it. :man-shrugging
It beats the alternative
@Doctor-Phibes said in Pig Heart Transplant:
@Axtremus said in Pig Heart Transplant:
Likely there are many other big problems, but I am curious about this: psychologically, how does the patient feel about being alive without having a pulse?
I feel weird just thinking about it. :man-shrugging
It beats the alternative
One alternative is "being alive and having a pulse."
