The other day I read a piece of news that a genetically modified pig’s heart transplanted to a 57 years old male, who suffered from a life-threatening heart disease. This is the first case of a human who receives an animal heart. The surgery was a success and the patient has passed the first 48 critical hours. He is doing well, and the doctors are monitoring him. It is too soon to know the survival rate at this point though.

This is such a breakthrough for medical science, and it offers hope to hundreds of thousands of patients with failing organs. No matter this patient is going to live or die, it still helps science to understand more about this kind of surgery and opens more doors for possibility. Just like the first human heart transplant operation on 3 December 1967, although the patient died on the 18th day. The human-to-human heart surgery has matured since then, and the worldwide heart transplant survival rate is greater than 85 percent after one year and 69 percent after 5 years for adults. This is an amazing result for those patients who wants to live longer.

We know that using pig heart valves is already very common, and some patients with diabetes have received porcine pancreas cells, pig skin has also been used as a temporary graft for burn patients. If this animal-heart-to-humans actually works, it not only gives patients hope, but also solve the acute shortage of organs. Pigs are easy to raise, and would be able to achieve adult human size in six months, it means we will have plenty of organ supplies for sure. But it takes a long time for surgery like this to mature.