An American woman, on the verge of death, received a genetically modified pig kidney. The woman can move and feels good

Amazing operation in the United States! For the first time in history, doctors have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a 54-year-old woman.

By the Observator editorial team on 25.04.2024, 08:38

Ten days after the intervention, the doctors say that the patient feels well. Lisa Pisano is the first woman to receive a pig organ, and this week, with the help of a cane, she managed to take her first steps.

The woman can consider herself lucky, because she was on the verge of death, and the transplant saved her life. She was suffering from kidney and heart failure.

History in the medical world. The first patient with a pig kidney

The first patient in the world to whom doctors transplanted a pig kidney was able to leave the American hospital where he was admitted, almost three weeks after that operation, at the beginning of April.

Rick Slayman is recovering well and will continue his convalescence at home, with his family, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced Wednesday evening on the X social network.

“This moment – leaving hospital today with one of the best health reports I’ve had in a long time – is a moment I’ve been wanting to come for years,” said the 62-year-old. , according to doctors. “Now it has become a reality.” This day was not only a new beginning for him, the patient said, but also for many other people who are waiting for a kidney transplant. Rick Slayman, who suffers from a life-threatening kidney disease, was transplanted with the genetically modified organ on March 16, according to the American hospital.

The procedure, known as xenotransplantation, has been the subject of research for many years. Pigs are particularly suitable as donors because their metabolism is similar to that of humans, but the genetic makeup of the donor animals must be altered in order for their organs to be used. Without genetic modification, there would be immediate rejection when organs are transferred to humans.

In fact, the 62-year-old man showed signs of rejection on the eighth day after the operation, The New York Times reported, citing one of the doctors. However, the immune reaction was controlled with medication.

“It was a roller coaster in the first week,” that doctor revealed to the American newspaper. However, the man reacted to the treatment in the same way as patients who received organs from human donors.

Recently, two seriously ill patients received transplanted pig hearts as replacement organs at the University Hospital in Baltimore, a city in the American state of Maryland. Both died a few weeks after the operation.