Word: baboons
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...Leonard L. Bailey, the California surgeon who supervised the pioneering transplant last month of a baboon heart to the infant Baby Fac, Predicted soon after the procedure was completed that his tiny patient would lead a "long and healthy" life...
...hospital to offer the infant's kidneys (the heart was not discussed because Loma Linda does not have a human-heart-transplant program). When word of the potential human donor became public last week, Loma Linda officials explained that the call from the procurement agency had come after the baboon heart was implanted, that the heart of a two-month-old might have been too big for Fae, and that it would have taken too long to complete compatibility testing. Eventually hospital officials admitted that they simply had not considered the possibility of a human donor...
That admission raised the larger question of whether Baby Fae's parents had been properly advised of possible alternatives to the baboon heart. "If they didn't even look for potential life-saving alternatives, what does this mean in terms of the 'informed consent' of the parents?" asked Michael Giannelli, science adviser for the Fund for Animals. According to Minnesota Surgeon Najarian, Baby Fae's doctors should have recommended a form of corrective surgery for hypoplastic heart developed by Dr. William Norwood, chief of cardiac surgery at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Norwood's procedure, which is practiced at only...
...their tiny patient had so far avoided "hyperacute rejection," a reaction to foreign tissue that often occurs immediately after a transplant. However, Hinshaw cautioned that the seventh to tenth days after a transplant are a peak period for rejection. Should the child begin to show signs of rejecting the baboon heart, said Hinshaw, a second transplant would be considered. In this event, a human heart was said to be the team's first choice and another baboon organ would be the second...
Loma Linda hospital has given Bailey permission to try five baboon-to-human transplants, but doctors say they have no immediate plans for other patients. Last week they were referring parents to Dr. Norwood at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Already some optimists are envisioning a day when the transplanting of simian hearts will be as acceptable in human medicine as the use of heart valves from pigs and bovine insulin. "Maybe one of these days we can start farming baboons for this purpose," suggests Christiaan Barnard. Others believe that baboon hearts could be used as a temporary measure...