Lawrence Faucette, a former retired soldier, suffered from a serious heart disease which almost certainly doomed him. This transplant represented the only possible option for him.
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A second chance. A 58-year-old patient on Wednesday September 20 became the second person in the world to have a genetically modified pig heart transplanted, a new illustration of a very active area of research in recent years. Lawrence Faucette, a former retired soldier, suffered from a serious heart disease which almost certainly doomed him. He was declared ineligible to receive a human heart transplant, and this solution therefore represented for him “the only option”according to a press release from the University of Maryland, in the United States, which hosts the medical school where the operation was carried out.
Lawrence Faucette is currently breathing alone, and his new heart is working well, without assistance, doctors said. “At least now I have hope and I have a chance”he said before the intervention, according to the University of Maryland. “We have no other expectations than to spend more time togetherhis wife also said. It can be as simple as sitting on the front porch and having our coffee together.”
Such an operation was carried out for the first time in 2022 in the same establishment. The then patient, David Bennett, died approximately two months after the procedure, “due to a multitude of factors, including his poor health” before the transplant.