American doctors announced today that they transplanted a genetically modified kidney from a pig to a 62-year-old man, which is the first time that such a thing has been done on a living patient.
Previously, kidneys were temporarily transplanted to brain-dead patients. Two men were also transplanted with pig hearts, but both died a few months after the intervention.
An experimental kidney transplant was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Saturday.
Patient Richard Sleiman of Weymouth, Massachusetts, is recovering well and is expected to be charged soon, doctors said today.
Sejman had a kidney transplant at that hospital in 2018, but had to return to dialysis last year when the kidney began to show signs of failure. When complications arose with dialysis, his doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant, he said in a statement released by the hospital.
"I saw it not only as a way to help myself but also as a way to give hope to the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive," Sleiman wrote.
This transplant represents the latest development in xenotransplantation, a term that refers to attempts to transplant living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another, for example from pigs to humans.
For decades, this could not be done because the human immune system immediately destroyed the foreign animal tissue. More recent attempts have involved pigs being modified so that their organs are more human-like, raising hopes that they could one day fill the shortage of donated organs.
More than 100.000 people are on America's transplant waiting list, a large proportion of them kidney patients, and thousands die each year before their turn.
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