A team of surgeons from New York University (NYU) in the US successfully transplanted genetically modified pig hearts into two brain-dead patients.
During a press conference on June 12, researchers reported that the hearts functioned normally, with no signs of rejection, during three days of experiments conducted in June and July.
These experiments came after the death in March of a 57-year-old man with terminal heart disease, who was the first in history to receive a genetically modified pig heart, transplanted by surgeons at the University of Maryland. The reasons why the implanted organ ended up failing are still unclear.
From New York University they reported that they obtained the modified pig hearts through the biotechnology company Revivicor Inc. and examined them for viruses using an improved control protocol.
The hearts showed no evidence of porcine cytomegalovirus, which had been detected in the Maryland man’s blood and could have contributed to his death.
The pigs had four genetic modifications to prevent rejection and abnormal growth of the organ and six to help prevent incompatibilities with humans. At the same time, NYU researchers transplanted pig kidneys into two brain-dead recipients in 2021.
For now, the team believes that xenotransplantation is safer in recipients with brain death than in patients without it. At the same time, it is more informative in terms of research because biopsies can be performed more frequently, which provides a great deal of detail. This was clarified by Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, and recipient of a heart transplant at NYU. "We were able to capture in real time everything that was happening during that 72-hour period," he said in statements cited by the Reuters agency.
According to the researchers, procurement, transportation, surgery and immunosuppression were carried out in the same way as traditional human heart transplants.
"Our goal is to integrate the practices used in a typical, everyday heart transplant, only with a non-human organ that will function normally without the additional help of unproven devices or medications," said Dr. Nader Moazami, surgical director of transplants at heart at NYU Langone.
The 72-hour experiments produced preliminary data, so many questions remain to be answered before starting trials with pig hearts in humans, he added.
