NY. Doctors in Boston have transplanted a pig kidney into a 62-year-old patient, the latest experiment in the quest to use animal organs in humans.
Massachusetts General Hospital said Thursday that it is the first time a genetically modified pig kidney has been transplanted into a living person. Pig kidneys had previously been transplanted into brain-dead donors. In addition, two people received pig heart transplants, although both patients died within a few months.
The new patient, Richard Slayman, a resident of Weymouth, Massachusetts, is recovering well after surgery Saturday and is expected to be discharged shortly, doctors said Thursday.
Dr. Tatsuo Kawai, the surgeon who performed the procedure, said the team believes the pig kidney will function for at least two years. If he fails, Slayman could return to dialysis, said specialist Winfred Williams. He noted that unlike the patients who received pig hearts and were very sick, Slayman “is actually pretty strong.”
Slayman had a kidney transplant at the hospital in 2018, but had to go back on dialysis last year when he showed signs of failure. When complications arose with dialysis, which required frequent procedures, doctors suggested inserting a pig kidney, he said in a statement distributed by the hospital.
“I looked at it not only as a way to help myself, but to raise hope for thousands of people who require a transplant to survive,” said Slayman, who works as a systems manager for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
The surgery took four hours and there were 15 people in the operating room, who applauded when the kidney turned pink and began to produce urine, doctors said at a news conference. “It really was the most beautiful kidney we have ever seen,” Kawai said.
Dr. Parsia Vagefi, director of transplant surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center, called the announcement “an important step.” But like the Boston doctors, he said studies involving more patients from different medical centers are needed before the practice becomes more widely available.
The experiment marks the latest step in xenotransplantation, the term used in the attempt to cure human patients with cells, tissues or organs from animals. For decades it didn’t work, as the human immune system immediately destroyed animal tissue. The most recent attempts have been made with pigs modified to make their organs more like those of humans, raising new hopes that they may one day make up for the shortage of donated organs.
More than 100,000 people in the United States are on the waiting list for a transplant, mostly kidney patients, and thousands die each year before their turn arrives.
Pigs have long been used in human medicine, including skin grafts and heart valve implantation. But whole organ transplantation is much more complex than using processed tissue. The kidney that was implanted in Slayman came from the company eGenesis of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The animal was genetically modified to remove harmful porcine genes and add certain human genes to improve its compatibility.
Slayman’s case was complicated, doctors said. Even before his first transplant, the patient had problems with dialysis and needed dozens of procedures to try to remove clots and restore blood flow. He became “increasingly discouraged and depressed about his dialysis situation. At one point, he literally said ‘I can’t go on like this,'” his doctor, Williams, said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted special permission for Slayman’s procedure under “compassionate use” rules.
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– 2024-04-08 04:11:19
