In 1st, US surgeons in MD transplant pig heart into human patient

U.S. doctors have transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life — a first for medical science.

Doctors at University of Maryland School of Medicine said Monday the patient is doing well three days after surgery. The patient is 57-year-old David Bennett, a Maryland handyman too sick to get a human heart. Bennett said before the surgery: “I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice.”

Friday’s surgery showed for the first time that a gene-edited animal heart can function in the human body without immediate rejection.

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