Is it currently possible to transplant genetically modified pig hearts in China? How many years can

Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to pump blood efficiently throughout the body. Heart failure has become an unprecedented health problem. By 2030, the number of adults with heart failure in the U.S. will exceed 8 million, and many of them will die while waiting for organ donation.

One possible way to address the organ shortage is to use the heart of a pig donor. Long-term survival has not been achieved in monkey trials of pig heart transplants, so this method is considered too dangerous to be tested in humans. Since the 90s of the 20th century, the concept of pig organ transplantation has been widely mentioned, and xenotransplantation is still difficult.

Norman Schurmway, the great pioneer of heart transplantation, was pessimistic about xenotransplantation as the future of organ transplantation, and always will be. Immune rejection is not so easy to solve. The development and use of immunosuppressive drugs can be said to be a hopeless way because they suppress the normal immune function of the body, exposing the body to more health threats.

But even with the best immunosuppressive drugs, the survival rate and survival time of organ transplants are not optimistic. Transplantation is the only feasible long-term intervention for patients with advanced heart failure. A viable organ** does not meet the current clinical need.

It has been proposed to use genetically modified pig hearts to help address this shortage, and preclinical trials have been conducted in baboon models. So far, the longest survival of baboons who have undergone a pig heart transplant is 57 days. Bruno Reichard and colleagues at the University of Munich in Germany have shown that longer survival can be achieved repeatedly.

The authors used three consecutive groups of transplant subjects to improve transplantation. They successfully achieved a long-term transplant that oxygenated the heart through blood circulation; By lowering the blood pressure of baboons and using compounds known to control cell growth, it is possible to prevent harmful expansion of transplanted organs. There were 5 baboons, 4 of which remained healthy for at least 90 days.

I don't think there is one in China at the moment, because in 2022, the surgical team of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the New York Times in the United States transplanted a patient with heart disease over the weekend, and he has passed the 48-hour danger period; After the transplantation, the condition did not improve, and the patient's heart rate became very severe, and there was no way to use the pig's heart, so he did not live for a long time.

Not at the moment, you shouldn't live long after the transplant, after all, there have been clinical trials in history and only survived for 57 days.

I don't think it can be done at the moment, because there have been no human experiments, so I don't know how long I can live after a transplant.

Introduction: Recently, we heard the news that a doctor in the United States transplanted a pig's heart to a patient for the first time, and completed the transplantation through some methods, transgenic xenotransplantation, do you feel that there is some new progress? Let's find out.

1. American doctors transplant pig hearts to patients

We saw information that patients who had undergone pig heart transplants had a picture with the doctor before the operation. This patient has a heart disease and it is in an advanced stage, his heart has been hit a lot, and he has been bedridden because he has not been active, so he can only rely on the heart-lung machine to maintain his life, many people think of an organ transplant, but there are no xenotransplant heart transplants, but now the pig heart has been transplanted into the patient's body. And it is found that the patient's condition is still relatively good, there is nothing uncomfortable, but it is still in the observation period, the doctor may find that this transplant will be successful, but there may be some difficulties through the rejection reaction, especially the rejection reaction in an organ transplant is the most difficult, so do you know why the pig's heart can progress so much?

It is also a kind of scientific and technological progress, and it has brought new developments in medical treatment.

Second, we are still observing

Through the observation of three days after the operation, his state is also relatively good, because it was found that he is still recovering, and the patient's condition has been good, we all know that this xenotransplantation is the heart of some transgenic animals, it may have some effect on the human body, but the rejection reaction will not be immediate, maybe the next few weeks will be monitored more closely to see the effect, whether there is a life-saving effect, I hope this patient can bring a good development, It also provides strong support for people's medical technology. So we will find that this method has some new technological breakthroughs, and they have done this through some technical difficulties of immune compatibility and customer service of difficult points such as virus transmission.

American doctors transplanted pig hearts into patients for the first time, genetically modified xenogeneous organ transplantation is very close, at least now there is a case of patients who have received heart transplants are in **and**, the situation has improved three days after surgery, indicating that at least there is still a very good effect after transplantation, but whether it can really succeed depends on the patient's later condition to know.

It's not far away, this transplant represents a progress in medical treatment, and at the same time, science and technology are also advancing, so some diseases can be obtained, and the state of transplant patients this time is also relatively good.

I think genetically modified xenotransplant organ transplantation is not far away, and I hope that those patients who are waiting for organ transplantation can do so as soon as possible**.

Human organ failure, to find the right to replace is very difficult, sometimes even if you find the right organ, it may not be suitable for the patient, therefore, our experts came up with xenotransplantation, before other countries have also used the organs in the baboon body to transplant to humans, and finally ended in failure, considering that pigs and we humans are relatively close, and pigs and we humans are genetically similar. However, experts have also spent many years doing this research, and there are many difficulties in the process.

Transplanting organs or tissues from pigs to humans has become a reality. Pig aortic valves and corneas can be transplanted to humans to make up for the lack of donated human tissues and organs, but pigs used to provide tissues and organs need special breeding. The three-dimensional structure of pig organs is very similar to that of humans, such as heart, cornea, valve, etc., which can be used as human organ tissues, but cannot be used directly.

At present, the rejection problem of organ transplantation is not the biggest obstacle, and taking anti-rejection drugs can inhibit rejection. The problem faced by scientists is that organs carry endogenous viruses, and bacterial infections can be solved by a sterile environment, but pigs carry many kinds of endogenous viruses, which are potentially infectious to the human body, and Dr. Yang Luhan, a scientist in China, knocked out more than 95% of endogenous viruses through gene technology.

Xenotransplantation with pigs as donors has existed, and pigs have been used as biological materials in China and around the world to wash away the cell antigens on the surface with chemical solutions to make corneal structures suitable for human transplantation, which has been successful, and the postoperative vision of patients who transplant pigs cornea can be restored to a certain extent.

For human beings, the best organ or tissue is of course human, and in order to avoid rejection as much as possible, blood group matching is required, and patients may also need to take medication for life, limiting the function of the immune system, but organ donation is relatively scarce, so the study of xenotransplantation is a scientific research project that is being carried out all over the world.

Yes, the first transplant was very successful, and so far there is no rejection or other complications in the patient's body, which means that our medical treatment has made a qualitative leap forward, and we will be able to popularize this transplant in the future.

It is indeed just around the corner, which means that this consistent law has been discovered, and the corresponding transplantation method has also been found, and the difficulty of xenotransplantation has also been solved.

Yes. Because such technology has developed very maturely, it is likely to become a very common phenomenon in the future.

Yes, with the development of technology, xenotransplantation will slowly be realized in the coming days.