5 ms·

I just looked to fact check this, and all the sources I can find says the patient died of pneumonia, not heart failure and that the heart didn't fail and contin

by eterm 4y ago

I just looked to fact check this, and all the sources I can find says the patient died of pneumonia, not heart failure and that the heart didn't fail and continued to work up until death. So no, the first transplant didn't "fail even sooner" because it wasn't the heart that failed.

ceejayoz 4y ago
Very different contexts. Before human heart transplantation was available, you could pick someone with severe heart disease but otherwise in good condition as a test candidate. It was entirely ethical; they'd die without the transplant anyways. Now that we have viable human heart transplantation, you have to pick sicker patients as candidates - people who wouldn't survive even if they got a human heart transplant. Giving someone who'd survive with a human heart an experimental pig heart isn't ethical. It makes sense that the failure model would be different.
- mort96 4y ago
  Is there no shortage of human hearts to transplant? Don't you have people who would live with a human heart transplant, but where the risk of waiting a short period of time for a pig heart transplant is about the same as the risk of waiting a long period of time for a human heart transplant? I mean if we do have enough human hearts to transplant into anyone who needs it I suppose that's a good thing, but all I hear about transplants is how long the wait times usually are for human organs.
  - Retric 4y ago
    The shortage means the people likely to survive longest after transplant get preferential treatment. Which means if someone has stage 4 cancer etc they aren’t on the list.
Retric 4y ago
The heart didn’t directly fail, however the procedure failed due to the immunosuppressants used. “After Washkansky’s surgery, he was given drugs to suppress his immune system and keep his body from rejecting the heart. These drugs also left him susceptible to sickness, however, and 18 days later he died from double pneumonia.”
steve76 4y ago

by eterm 4y ago

ceejayoz 4y ago

Very different contexts. Before human heart transplantation was available, you could pick someone with severe heart disease but otherwise in good condition as a test candidate. It was entirely ethical; they'd die without the transplant anyways. Now that we have viable human heart transplantation, you have to pick sicker patients as candidates - people who wouldn't survive even if they got a human heart transplant. Giving someone who'd survive with a human heart an experimental pig heart isn't ethical. It makes sense that the failure model would be different.

mort96 4y ago
Is there no shortage of human hearts to transplant? Don't you have people who would live with a human heart transplant, but where the risk of waiting a short period of time for a pig heart transplant is about the same as the risk of waiting a long period of time for a human heart transplant? I mean if we do have enough human hearts to transplant into anyone who needs it I suppose that's a good thing, but all I hear about transplants is how long the wait times usually are for human organs.
- Retric 4y ago
  The shortage means the people likely to survive longest after transplant get preferential treatment. Which means if someone has stage 4 cancer etc they aren’t on the list.

Retric 4y ago

The heart didn’t directly fail, however the procedure failed due to the immunosuppressants used. “After Washkansky’s surgery, he was given drugs to suppress his immune system and keep his body from rejecting the heart. These drugs also left him susceptible to sickness, however, and 18 days later he died from double pneumonia.”

steve76 4y ago