Are pig heart transplants a reality? Successful surgery shows it’s possible

A married father of two last month became the second patient in the world to receive a successful transplant of a genetically modified pig heart. A month later he's doing well.

Lawrence Faucette, a 58-year-old United States veteran, was dying of heart failure and had explored nearly every avenue for a life-saving transplant. Amidst the uncertainty, a glimmer of hope remained: an unconventional yet promising possibility — the gift of a pig’s heart.

On Sept. 20, the married father of two became the second patient in the world to receive a successful transplant of a genetically modified pig heart, performed at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC).

“I have been rejected by every human transplant institute on the East Coast. We are now down to my only real hope left is to go with the pig heart transplant,” Faucette told a spokesperson from UMMC before the surgery.

“Hoping for the absolute best,” he said. “My next step at that point would be to be deemed healthy enough to go home. … That would be the first miracle. The second miracle would be a month later, six months later, a year later. I’ll take whatever I can get at that point.”

Faucette received his miracle.

A month later his body showed no signs of rejecting the pig heart, his doctors said in a video released by the hospital on Oct. 20. He is breathing on his own and his heart is functioning well without any assistance from supportive medical devices, they said.

“His heart is doing everything on its own,” said Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, UMMC’s cardiac xenotransplantation chief.

Dr. Marc Ruel, a heart surgeon and professor in the department of surgery at the University of Ottawa, called the pig transplant surgery “groundbreaking.”