US surgeons marked a huge leap in medical technology as they successfully transplanted a pig kidney into a human for the first time in history.
The operation done at NYU Langone Health in New York City, the transplanted pig kidney didn’t trigger immediate rejection by the recipient’s immune system.
The procedure involved use of a pig whose genes had been altered so that its tissues no longer contained a molecule known to trigger almost immediate rejection.
Using pigs for transplants is not a new idea though. Pig heart valves are already widely used in humans. And their organs are a good match for people when it comes to size.
The patient who received the pig kidney was a woman who was brain dead with signs of kidney dysfunction.
Her family consented to the experiment before she was due to be taken off of life support after researchers analyzed how the pig kidney functioned.
For three days, the new kidney was attached to her blood vessels and maintained outside her body – giving researchers access to it.
Transplant surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led the study, said test results of the transplanted pig kidney functioned ‘pretty normal’.
“The pig kidney made the amount of urine that you would expect from a transplanted human kidney and there was no evidence of the vigorous, early rejection seen when unmodified pig kidneys are transplanted into non-human primates,” said Dr. Montgomery.
The successful procedure marks a potentially major advance that could eventually help alleviate a dire shortage of human organs for transplant.
Researchers have been working for decades on the possibility of using animal organs for transplants, but progress was hindered over how to prevent immediate rejection by the human body.
Dr. Montgomery’s team theorized that knocking out the pig gene for a carbohydrate that triggers rejection – a sugar molecule, or glycan, called alpha-gal – would prevent the problem.
The surgeon noted that the pig kidney transplant experiment should pave the way for trials in patients with end-stage kidney failure, possibly in the next year or two.
“Those trials might test the approach as a short-term solution for critically ill patients until a human kidney becomes available, or as a permanent graft,” Dr. Montgomery stated.
US surgeons have successfully transplanted a kidney from a genetically altered pig to a human for the first time in history.
This advancement could help alleviate a dire shortage of human organs for transplant ? pic.twitter.com/7CwDuPMij3
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 21, 2021
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