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Terminally ill heart patient gets genetically modified pig’s heart in first-of-its-kind transplant
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Surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have, for the first time, successfully transplanted kidneys from a genetically altered pig into a human.
The patient was a 57-year-old brain-dead man whose kidneys were removed to make room for two pig kidneys. It took about 23 minutes before they began to function, creating urine and continued for three days, until the end of their study. However, one kidney worked better than the other, though there was no sign of either being rejected by the patient’s immune system.
It’s the closest surgeons have come to the goal since September when at NYU Langone doctors attached a pig’s kidney from the outside to a brain-dead patient being supported by a ventilator. The kidney functioned normally for 54 hours, they reported — a breakthrough at the time.
“This game-changing moment in the history of medicine represents a paradigm shift and a major milestone in the field of xenotransplantation, which is arguably the best solution to the organ shortage crisis,” said Dr. Jayme Locke, director of UAB’s Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program, in a statement.
“This study provides knowledge that could not be generated in animal models and moves us closer to a future where organ supply meets the tremendous need.”
Locke also explained that it’s not uncommon to use brain-dead patients for this purpose — because if it worked for them, it should work for healthy patients just as well. She told the Daily Mail, “The brain death environment is quite hostile, making assessment of kidney function difficult (e.g. urine output, creatinine clearance), and is not surprising given that even in human-to-human transplantation kidneys from brain dead donors often … do not make urine for a week and take several more weeks to clear creatinine.”
And this is the latest development in the ongoing effort to establish animal-human organ transplantation, called xenotransplantation, and to meet the rising demands of viable organs. Last week, doctors at the University of Maryland transplanted a heart from another genetically modified pig into a 57-year-old patient with heart failure, who survived the procedure and is still currently under observation.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/20/pig-to-human-kidney-transplant-a-success-in-latest-organ-donation/?utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow
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