ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 12, 1996 TAG: 9611120070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
The first use of pig hearts will be temporary, he said, enabling patients to live for a few weeks or months while they await permanent transplantation of a human donor heart. ``What we learn from doing those operations will enable us to then use pig hearts for permanent transplantation into humans.''
Duke already has permission from the federal Food and Drug Administration to use a pig's liver as a temporary bridge transplant for a human and is awaiting an appropriate patient.
Transplanting animal organs into humans has failed to work in the past, but Platt and his colleagues have used genetic manipulation to improve their chances for success.
By implanting a human gene in a pig organ, Platt said, he can suppress production of sugars that identify the pig as a substance foreign to a human immune system.
Working with pig hearts and baboons, the Duke researchers have done cross-species transplants that have functioned for more than a month.
``Under normal conditions, our bodies would reject a pig's heart within minutes,'' Platt said. ``Going from minutes to weeks or months is exciting, because it shows we no longer have a fundamental immunity problem to deal with, but just a technical problem.''
Although 40,000 Americans are candidates for heart transplants each year, only about 2,300 get them because of the limited supply of human donor hearts, Platt said. Pigs could be an excellent source of organs for those who now go without, he said.
Pig tissue is used for heart valve replacements and pigs have been used as a source of insulin for people, Platt said.
``We've had a history of using pigs for medical purposes,'' said Platt, ``and what is coming is just a dramatic extension of that.''
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