The second person to receive a pig's heart in a transplant lived for six weeks after the procedure, reports CNN.
Faucette, 58, was first admitted to UMMC on September 14 after experiencing symptoms of heart failure and underwent the experimental transplant six days later. His heart disease and pre-existing conditions made him ineligible for a traditional human heart transplant.
"My only real hope left is to go with the pig heart, the xenotransplant," Faucette told the hospital in an internal interview several days before the surgery.
"We have no expectations other than hoping for more time together," his wife, Ann Faucette, said at the time. "That could be as simple as sitting on the front porch and having coffee together."
Apparently it went well until the final days, when the pig's heart was rejected by Faucette's body. 57-year-old David Bennett died two months following the first such surgery last year; in his case there was "evidence of pig virus that had not been identified previously" among other problems.
