American surgeons claim to have successfully transplanted a pig kidney into a human for the first time. Doctors hope this will help solve the problem of organ shortage.
The transplant was clearly experimental: the patient’s brain stopped functioning, he was on life support with no chance of recovery. A kidney was harvested from a genetically modified pig. The modification was necessary to prevent the body from rejecting the foreign organ.
The job has not been reviewed or posted yet. Experts say this is the most challenging experiment in the field to date. Similar tests have been done on primates, but not on humans.
In fact, using pig organs for transplantation is not a new idea. Pig heart valves have been transplanted into humans for a long time. Porcine organs are comparable in size to human organs, making them suitable for transplantation.
During the operation at New York University’s Langone Health Medical Center, surgeons connected a pig donor kidney to the recipient’s blood vessels to test whether it would function properly once attached or if the body would reject it.
The operation took several hours. For the next two and a half days, they watched the kidney work closely. Lead researcher Dr. Robert Montgomery told BBC World Tonight: “We observed a kidney that functioned primarily as a human kidney transplant and proved to be compatible in the sense that it performed all the functions of a normal human kidney. Doctors admit that the new method has an ethical side, but they point out that about 40% of patients waiting for a transplant die without ever receiving one.
Transplant physician group Dr. Maryam Hosravi, who works in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, believes: “We shouldn’t be doing this just because we can. I think society as a whole should be answering these questions. Despite the success of the operation, doctors believe that the selection of human organs for transplantation remains a priority. The new technology will require numerous clinical trials before it becomes an everyday reality.