Scientists Reveal Why Man Died After Receiving Pig Heart Transplant – Futurism

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A man who successfully lived for two months after doctors replaced his failing heart with a genetically altered onemay have ultimately died from virus pigs not humans are known to carry, The New York Times reports.

Its an unfortunate predicament, underlining the complex and little-understood risks involved in transplanting animal organs into the human body.

Its unclear if the virus was the direct cause of the patients death in March, but it may have played a contributing role, according to Bartley Griffith, a transplant surgeon at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who recently gave a presentation on the subject.

Surgeons had initially screened the pig heart for the virus called porcine cytomegalovirus (CMV), according to the NYT,but the tests arent able to pick up on latent infections, only active ones.

Despite Griffiths passing, scientists were elated at how long his body went without rejecting the pig heart, according to the newspaper.

Twenty days after the procedure, a test found low levels of porcine CMV, according to Griffin.But then Bennets condition deteriorated quickly, with subsequent tests confirming spiking levels of the virus.

At Day 45, he looked really funky, Griffith told the NYT. Something happened. He looked sick. He lost his attention. He wouldnt talk to us. He lay in bed breathing hard, and was kind of warm.

Griffin also said that porcine CMV may have been the actor it could have been the actor that set this all off.

The incident is indicative of the inherent risks of such a procedure and the fact that a lot of work still has to be done before we can start solving the organ crisis by harvesting organs from animals.

READ MORE: Signs of an Animal Virus Discovered in Man Who Received a Pigs Heart [The New York Times]

More on the transplant: Man Who Received Experimental Pig Heart Transplant Dies

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Scientists Reveal Why Man Died After Receiving Pig Heart Transplant - Futurism