France - World | Health: a pig kidney continues to function, a month after its transplant into a human

2023-08-16 16:09:07

This is the longest period without rejection observed for this type of operation: a pig kidney continues to function 32 days after its transplantation into a brain-dead human, an American scientific team announced on Wednesday.

These animal-to-human organ transplants, also called xenografts, are being developed in hopes of addressing the chronic shortage of organ donations.

The new transplant took place at NYU Langone Hospital in New York City on July 14, on a 57-year-old man who was brain dead and placed on life support after donating his body to science.

This man’s kidneys were removed during an operation, and replaced with a kidney from a genetically modified pig, so that the organ would not be immediately rejected by the human body.

More than 100,000 Americans on the waiting list for an organ transplant

These 32 days represent “longest time a genetically modified pig kidney has worked in a human“, welcomed the hospital in a press release, indicating that it plans to continue the analyzes for an additional month.

Several xenografts have been performed by this team in recent years, including the world first transplant of a pig kidney into a human, in September 2021.

The world’s first for a porcine heart transplant into a living human was performed by a University of Maryland hospital. The man had died two months after his operation.

More than 100,000 Americans are currently on the waiting list for an organ transplant, of which nearly 88,000 are waiting for a kidney.

“There simply aren’t enough organs available for everyone who needs them.“said Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone’s Transplant Institute.”Far too many people are dying because of the lack of available organs, I strongly believe that xenografts are a viable way to change that.“