USA: For the first time a pig kidney was transplanted to a living patient

For the first time, American surgeons transplanted a genetically modified pig into a live one. So they took another step towards the possible solution of the chronic organ shortage, as the Massachusetts General Hospital announced today in Boston. The 62-year-old patient recovers well from kidney transplantation, performed about a week ago. In the recent past there have been other kidney transplants from genetically modified pigs and organs have worked, but the patients who received them were already brain dead. The four-hour intervention took place on March 16th and marks “an important station in search of available organs for patients,” the hospital said. The pig’s kidney came from the eGenesis laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which states that it aims to put an end to the organ shortage for transplantation and radically change organ failure treatments. Genetically modified pig hearts have also been transplanted into patients who died. The aim of the genetic modification of the instrument is to limit the risk of its rejection by the recipient. Doctors “explained to me in detail the pros and cons of the procedure,” patient Richard Slayman said, according to the announcement. “I saw it as a way not only to help myself but also to give hope to thousands of people who need a transplant to survive”. More than 100,000 people are on the waiting list for an organ in the United States. The most common transplants are those of the kidneys. In recent years, significant progress has been recorded in the field of alien transplantation, i.e. animal organ transplantation in humans. The first kidney transplant from pig to man who was brain dead was made in September 2021 by NYU Langone hospital surgeons in New York City.