Two months ago, the news was a medical sensation: the 57-year-old, who had a pig’s heart used as a replacement organ for the first time in the world, is dead.
David Bennett died on Tuesday, about two months after the operation, the University Hospital in Baltimore said on Wednesday. His condition started deteriorating a few days ago.
In a milestone in the field of organ transplantation, the man suffering from a life-threatening heart disease had the genetically modified organ implanted in an operation lasting several hours at the beginning of January.
After the operation, the patient was still connected to a heart-lung machine for a few days, after which his condition was initially relatively stable, according to the doctors.