Man who had first ever pig heart transplant dies two months after experimental surgery

The first man to ever receive a heart transplant from a pig has died two months after the revolutionary operation took place.

David Bennett, 67, died on Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Centre, the hospital announced.

A cause of death has not yet been provided by doctors in the United States, who have only stated that his condition had been deteriorating over the past few days.

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Mr Bennett's son praised the hospital for offering the experimental operation and said the family hopes it will help continue efforts to end the organ shortage.

“We are grateful for every innovative moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that went into this historic effort,” David Bennett Jnr 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 Hagerstown, was a candidate for the new operation of transplanting a pig's heart because doctors had no doubt he would have died without it.

Following the operation, which took place on January 7, Mr Bennett's son said his father knew there was no guarantee he would survive as a result of the transplant

Prior attempts at such transplants – or xenotransplantation – have failed largely because patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ.

This time, the Maryland surgeons used a heart from a gene-edited pig.

The pig gene from the organ was removed via modification and then replaced with human genes.

Slowly, Mr Bennett seemed to be recovering and taking to the new heart. Video footage was released last month of him watching the Super Bowl in bed.

Mr Bennett