Recipient of first pig-heart transplant dies 2 months after surgery

• David Bennett Sr., the first person to receive a pig-heart transplant, died on Tuesday.
• Bennett lived two months after the experimental procedure, giving doctors valuable insights.

The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died two months following the operation.

David Bennett Sr. died on Tuesday at 57 years old, the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) announced on Wednesday. The hospital where his transplant surgery was performed on January 7 did not provide his cause of death.

According to the statement, the transplant worked very well for "several weeks" and there was no sign of rejection, but Bennett's condition began to deteriorate several days ago and it quickly became clear that he would not recover.

"We are devastated by the loss of Mr. Bennett," Dr. Bartley P. Griffith, who performed the surgery, said in the Wednesday statement. "He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end. We extend our sincerest condolences to his family."

Griffith added, "As with any first-in-the-world transplant surgery, this one led to valuable insights that will hopefully inform transplant surgeons to improve outcomes and potentially provide lifesaving benefits to future patients."

Previously, researchers had only connected a genetically engineered pig kidney to a brain-dead human. Bennett's two months of living with a pig heart are a significant step forward. Genetically modified pig organs may not become a viable alternative to human-organ transplants for many years. But if the technology does succeed, it could save many lives.

More than 106,000 people in the US are on the transplant waiting list for human organs — waiting for the death of a registered organ donor who has a compatible kidney, lung, liver, or heart — according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. On average, 17 people die each day waiting for organs.

"It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live," Bennett said a day before the surgery, according to a previous UMMC press release. "I know it's a shot in the dark, but it's my last choice."

Ineligible for a human heart, Bennett took a big risk

Bennett had a terminal heart condition that left him bedridden by the time he arrived at UMMC in October 2021. He required a heart-lung bypass machine to stay alive. He needed a new heart.

At UMMC, as at several other hospitals, Bennett was deemed ineligible for a human-heart transplant because he had a history of failing to follow doctor's orders, according to Griffith. Many transplant centers use this controversial criteria to ensure that the scarce supply of human organs go to patients who have demonstrated that they can keep up with the intensive medical care required after a transplant.

Griffith offered Bennett a pig heart instead. On December 31, the US Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency authorization for the experimental surgery. One week later, Bennett was under the knife in a desperate bid to save his life.

In the following weeks, Bennett spent time with his family, participated in physical therapy, and looked forward to getting home to his dog, Lucky, according to the UMMC statement.

"Up until the end, my father wanted to continue fighting to preserve his life and spend more time with his beloved family, including his two sisters, his two children, and his five grandchildren, and his cherished dog Lucky," Bennett's son, David Bennett Jr., said in a statement. "We were able to spend some precious weeks together while he recovered from the transplant surgery, weeks we would not have had without this miraculous effort."

A few days after Bennett's transplant sur gey, The Washington Post revealed that in 1998 Bennett was convicted of stabbing a man seven times. That isn't relevant to his heart condition or his transplant surgery, though, medical ethics experts told the Post and Insider, since a patient's criminal history should not factor into decisions about transplants. Hospitals generally don't take criminal history into account when choosing whom to place on the organ-donation waiting list.

Ultimately, Bennett was the right patient for the experimental transplant because he had no other options, Griffith wrote in a Newsweek essay two days after the Post's report. If he'd been eligible for a human heart, he wouldn't have been a candidate for a pig heart.

Griffith said that Bennett was fully aware of the risks of his experimental procedure, including the fact that doctors couldn't truly tell him what the risks were.

"We hope this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end," Bennett Jr. said, adding, "We also hope that what was learned from his surgery will benefit future patients and hopefully one day, end the organ shortage that costs so many lives each year."