Can humans survive with a pigs heart?

Answer 1

Transplanting organs from animals to humans (xenotransplantation, pronounced "zee-no-transplantation") is rarely performed in real life. However the "theme" of xenotransplantation seems to be quite prevalent in fictional novels/tv series which to some extent spreads the public misconception that it is a common occurrence.

Xenotransplantation is rarely performed, since at a basic level, it just does not work. The organs do not perform nearly as well as a human-to-human transplanted organ (referred to as "allotransplantation", but often shortened to just "transplantation". "Allo" indicates that the organ is from the same species as the recipient). Is the vast majority of cases, a xenograft (the organ used in a xenotransplant) will either fail to function, or reject within a few days of the operation. This is one reason why they are extremely rarely used.

The situation in which you may hear of an animal organ being used is when a patient is absolutely critically ill, and a time-gap (of around 2 or 3 days) has to be bridged until a suitable human organ can be found. These cases happen exceedingly rarely; in many cases skilled transplant surgeons would not even contemplate/ be given the official clearance to perform this procedure, due to the problems with medical ethics and sourcing of the suitable animal organ at short notice. Even in situations with critically-ill patients, xenotransplantation is an incredibly uncommon occurrence.

Xenotransplantation is currently never used as a "permanent" solution - that's what allotransplantation is used for.

To answer your question specifically, with current medical advances it still would not be a good idea to have a xenotransplant of a pig heart, since there is a huge risk of it not functioning properly, or rejecting. For the time being, stick to human organs.

There is currently research into how to make organs from animals (mainly pigs and sheep) "humanised" for use in transplantation, so that the rate of organ rejection is minimised. But this is still very early research. These organs are nowhere near ready for any practical use in transplantation. And even if they were of practical use, the option of an allotransplant would still be around for a long time subsequently.

For more information, please see related link.

Answer 2

its never been tried, in the 1960s surgeons used a baboon heart but the man died after a month. Pig hearts are roughly the same size as the human heart and are also a four chambered like the human heart. so if pigs have blood types close to ours than maybe. but nothing works better than a good ol' human heart.