The first patient in the United States to receive a pig kidney has been successfully discharged from the hospital
Kyiv • UNN
On March 16, Richard Slayman, 62, underwent a four-hour operation at a Massachusetts hospital to transplant a kidney from a genetically modified pig. The man has now recovered. Slayman became the first man with a transplanted pig kidney to leave the hospital almost three weeks after the operation.
A revolutionary event in the field of medicine has taken place in the United States - the recovery of the first patient to receive a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig has been reported. This is reported by UNN with reference to the Harvard Medical School Hospital in Boston, the New York Times and the BBC.
Details
The 62-year-old patient was sent home on Wednesday, two weeks after the groundbreaking surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston reported on X.
For a long time, Richard "Rick" Slayman from Weymouth, Massachusetts, had been struggling with end-stage renal disease and needed an organ transplant.
According to the hospital, the man was implanted with the genetically modified organ on March 16. Sleiman's kidney is now functioning well and he is no longer on dialysis. Sleiman has already reported that the opportunity to leave the hospital and return home was "one of the happiest moments" of his life.
I am happy to spend time with my family, friends and loved ones again, free from the burden of dialysis that has affected my quality of life for many years
For reference
In 2018, he received a human kidney transplant from a deceased donor, but last year it began to fail, and doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant.
The new pig kidney he received was modified by the Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company eGenesis to remove "harmful pig genes and add certain human genes to improve its compatibility with humans.
Pigs are particularly suitable as donors because their metabolism is similar to that of humans. In order to use such organs, the genetic makeup of the donor animals must be changed, among other things. Otherwise, an immediate rejection reaction would occur when transplanted into a human.
The 62-year-old patient showed signs of rejection on the eighth day after the surgery, the New York Times reports, citing one of the doctors. The immune reaction was contained with medication.
The first week was a roller coaster ride
However, the man responded to treatment in the same way as patients who received organs from human donors.
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Every day in the United States, 17 people die waiting for an organ, and kidneys are the most common organ needed for transplantation.
According to the American non-profit organization United Network for Organ Sharing, more than 100,000 Americans are in need of life-saving organ transplants.
The number of donors - deceased and living - in 2023 was just under 23.5 thousand.
Although the above example is the first pig kidney transplanted into a human, it is not the first pig organ to be used in a transplant procedure.
Two other patients were transplanted with pig hearts, but these procedures were unsuccessful, as the recipients died a few weeks later, the BBC reports .
Recall
A boy with cancer has been transplanted with a bone printed on a 3D printer. This is the first such operation in the western regions of Ukraine. It was performed jointly by specialists from Lviv, Kyiv, and Ivano-Frankivsk. The joint team operated in Lviv, UNN reports, citing the First Medical Association of Lviv.
