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Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

bbc.com

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Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#101

Post by rurp »

phkahler wrote: post #96
gpm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What people die of" seems like the sort of question the medical community should be quite good at answering. Does it? I'm definitely not a doctor, but it seems like a very difficult question to answer. Even with perfect information, it seems unlikely there is always a simple/single answer. I would naively expect things like (and I'm making a bit up here, because I'm really not a doctor) "not enough oxygen reached…

That's why I'm noticing studies that use "all cause mortality". In other words, some people receive X treatment and a similar control group does not. Then you look at how many died in each group regardless of cause because it's just too difficult (and death is pretty much a binary measure). For example, cholesterol lowering drugs (I don't have a source) seem to have no impact on all-cause-mortality, suggesting a fail…

Certain invasive cancer treatments can look a lot more effective than they really are, if all cause mortality isn't measured. It's possible to reduce the risk of a patient dying from the particular cancer they have while also lowering their overall life expectancy, since the procedure itself can be extremely harmful.

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#102

Post by [deleted] »

dheera wrote: post #95
slowhand09 wrote: post #5

My friend was a member of the transplant team at Johns Hopkins. "They" said he was near multiple organ failure prior to the transplant. And he survived significantly longer than expected. Recovery under those circumstances was a very long shot already. Kudos to him for undergoing the procedure, and furthering the research. Condolences to he and his family.

Well also, condolences to Edward Shumaker, who he murdered, and Edward's family. [0] [0] https://www.wionews.com/world/patient-in-ground-breaking-hea...

[deleted]

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#103

Post by sonicggg »

slowhand09 wrote: post #5

My friend was a member of the transplant team at Johns Hopkins. "They" said he was near multiple organ failure prior to the transplant. And he survived significantly longer than expected. Recovery under those circumstances was a very long shot already. Kudos to him for undergoing the procedure, and furthering the research. Condolences to he and his family.

Choosing a guy next to his deathbed is not the greatest PR move. People will associate the death to the transplant.

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#104

Post by harles »

sonicggg wrote: post #103
slowhand09 wrote: post #5

My friend was a member of the transplant team at Johns Hopkins. "They" said he was near multiple organ failure prior to the transplant. And he survived significantly longer than expected. Recovery under those circumstances was a very long shot already. Kudos to him for undergoing the procedure, and furthering the research. Condolences to he and his family.

Choosing a guy next to his deathbed is not the greatest PR move. People will associate the death to the transplant.

I’m glad this team was more concerned about science and minimizing risk than PR. Hopefully negative press doesn’t cause much of a hinderance.

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#105

Post by sonicggg »

momenti wrote: post #17
Supermancho wrote: post #3

He lasted 2 months. For reference, artificial hearts generally do 130 days - (2018) https://syncardia.com/patients/media/blog/2018/08/seven-thin... with some notable outliers that live for years, and human to human transplant is about 9 years. Usually it's some related systemic problem that kills you under these conditions eg consistent brain clotting causing stroke or organ failure due to drug cocktails.

Heart transplant recipients survive 15 years on average: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation

To be honest, not sure why we spend so much resources on heart transplants. For the most part, the underlying condition that wrecked your old heart is probably still there. We should be putting more resources into preventative medicine.

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#106

Post by rurp »

data_acquired wrote: post #98
gpm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What people die of" seems like the sort of question the medical community should be quite good at answering. Does it? I'm definitely not a doctor, but it seems like a very difficult question to answer. Even with perfect information, it seems unlikely there is always a simple/single answer. I would naively expect things like (and I'm making a bit up here, because I'm really not a doctor) "not enough oxygen reached…

One of Atul Gawande's books (Complications) mentions that amongst deaths where an autopsy is done, the cause of death was misdiagnosed by the doctor about 40% of the time. Quote from book [Page 197, Chapter name : "Final Cut"] --- "How often do autopsies turn up a major misdiagnosis in the cause of death? I would have guessed this happened rarely, in 1 or 2 percent of cases at most. According to three studies done in…

I think 100 years from now people will look back on our current medicine the same way we view medicine from 100 years ago. There is some impressive progress, but we know less than we think we do and conduct a lot of wasteful and harmful procedures.

It's disturbing to learn how thin the evidence is for a lot of modern medical operations. For example, the recommendations for certain cancer screenings have actually been reduced in recent years after it was found they were causing net harm.

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#107

Post by benatkin »

dheera wrote: post #95
slowhand09 wrote: post #5

My friend was a member of the transplant team at Johns Hopkins. "They" said he was near multiple organ failure prior to the transplant. And he survived significantly longer than expected. Recovery under those circumstances was a very long shot already. Kudos to him for undergoing the procedure, and furthering the research. Condolences to he and his family.

Well also, condolences to Edward Shumaker, who he murdered, and Edward's family. [0] [0] https://www.wionews.com/world/patient-in-ground-breaking-hea...

I prefer not to call him pig-hearted because pigs are smart, kind, and beautiful animals. https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/phenomenal-r...

I suppose he made a good guinea pig, though.

Better him than actual guinea pigs.

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#108

Post by zerocrates »

jll29 wrote: post #60

May he rest in peace - he had some additional happy days from what it looks like, and he helped science advance a bit, kudos to him. What worried me was when I read he was "not eligible" to be a recipient of a human heart; I hope this is not just because he had a bad (or no) insurance.

My recollection is that his general health was quite poor and he also had a documented history of not following doctors' orders.

Of course it's also probably not unrelated that he paralyzed someone for life in a stabbing attack many years ago, but I believe the official story at least was that this didn't enter into the calculus.

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#109

Post by benatkin »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #64
jjtheblunt wrote: post #43

this is sad. it's kind of bizarre from a mile high view, but all so normal too, that no one comments on the sacrifice of a pig, i found myself observing.

I would also be happy to go vegan, but I don't see a way to be healthy that way, so..

Have you tried being vegan for a month? I thought I felt worse after it, but that was several years ago and I think I should give it another shot.

I'm sure you have your reasons for thinking that.

Re: Man given genetically modified pig heart dies

#110

Post by Guereric »

Supermancho wrote: post #3

He lasted 2 months. For reference, artificial hearts generally do 130 days - (2018) https://syncardia.com/patients/media/blog/2018/08/seven-thin... with some notable outliers that live for years, and human to human transplant is about 9 years. Usually it's some related systemic problem that kills you under these conditions eg consistent brain clotting causing stroke or organ failure due to drug cocktails.

I found extra information for those curious about statistics involving human heart transplantation [1]:

"The most recent data of the registry of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation indicates a current 1-year survival of 84.5% and a 5-year survival of 72.5%. This has significantly improved as compared to the 76.9% 1-year survival and 62.7% 5-year survival in the 1980s. The development of new immunosuppressive drugs which allow a variety of immunosuppressive regimens, tailored to the individual patient, has contributed to this success, since rejection and the adverse effects of immunosuppression could be better controlled. After 20 years, ca. 21% of patients are still alive, according to the international registry. In some experienced centers, long-term survival is reported to be even higher. The University Hospital Zurich has achieved a 20-year survival rate of 55.6%.

The improvement in outcome over the decades is related mainly to an increase in survival over the first year. After this period, the attrition rate of ca. 3-4% per year has remained similar over the different eras. This might be attributable to the fact that it was not possible to reduce the incidence of long-term complications after heart transplantation, such as chronic allograft vasculopathy (CAV) and malignancies, which account for ca. 35% of all deaths after 10 to 15 years."

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4387387/

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