David Bennett Jr., right, stands next to his father's hospital bed
(Picture: AP)The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died two months after the ground-breaking procedure.
David Bennett Sr, 57, died Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Centre where doctors earlier this year had performed the surgery.
Doctors said the man’s condition had begun deteriorating several days before his death.
His cause of death was not revealed.
His son David Bennett Jr praised the hospital for offering the treatment and he said it would help efforts to end organ shortages.
“We are grateful for every innovative moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that went into this historic effort,” he said in a statement released by the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
“We hope this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end.”
Mr Bennett, a handyman from Maryland, was a candidate for the pig heart transplant because he was on life support and he was ineligible for a human transplant.
Family said he knew the operation was not guaranteed to work.
Dr. Bartley Griffith, who performed the surgery, said in a statement: “We are devastated by the loss of Mr. Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end.”
Previous attempts at animal to human organ transplants have largely failed because the patients’ bodies rejected the organ.
In Mr Bennett’s case, doctors used a gene-edited pig’s heart to encourage the body to accept the organ.
Maryland hospital’s periodic updates had appeared to show the 57-year-old slowly recovering.
Last month, the hospital released a video of him watching the Super Bowl from his hospital bed while working with his physical therapist.
The US Food and Drug Administration had allowed the experimental Maryland operation under "compassionate use" rules for emergency situations because of his health.
Pigs have long been used in human medicine, including pig skin grafts and implantation of pig heart valves.
However, transplanting entire organs is much more complex than using highly-processed tissue.
