Surgeons have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a patient suffering from chronic kidney failure.
- Surgeons in the United States transplanted a pig kidney into a man with severe kidney failure.
- For the first time in the world, this operation was performed on a living patient.
- It opens up new possibilities for people waiting for a transplant.
On Saturday March 16, a world first took place in an operating room at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). For four hours, surgeons operated on a sixty-year-old suffering from chronic kidney failure: they transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney. The patient, Mr. Richard Slayman, is still in the hospital, where he is “restores GOOD” and should be able to be released soon. “This procedure marks an important step in the search for organs that are more readily available to patients.”welcome American doctors in a communicated.
Transplant: a pig kidney transplanted for the first time into a living patient
This technique is called xenotransplantation: the transplantation of organs or tissues from one species to another. Previously, pig kidneys had already been implanted into patients, but they were brain dead: this is the first time that the operation has been carried out on a living patient. “When my transplanted kidney started to malfunction in 2023, I trusted my MGH care team againsays the patient. My nephrologist, Dr. Winfred Williams, and the Transplant Center team suggested a porcine kidney transplant, carefully explaining the pros and cons of this procedure. 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.”
Transplant: the pig kidney has been genetically modified
Before being transplanted, the porcine organ was genetically modified using the method of “scissors genetics, called CRISPR-Cas9. This made it possible to eliminate porcine genes “harmful” and add some human genes to “improve her compatibility”. The scientists also inactivated the “retrovirus endogenous pigs” in the pig organ in order to eliminate any risk of infection in humans. In total, the kidney contained 69 genetic modifications: for the researchers, the objective is to minimize the risk of rejection of the transplant by the patient. This phenomenon refers to all the reactions of the immune system which will gradually attack the graft.
Pig kidney transplantation: hope for people waiting for a transplant
“The success of this revolutionary kidney transplant represents a real milestone in the field of transplantation, announces Dr. Winfried Williams, Mr. Slayman’s nephrologist. It also represents a potential step forward in solving one of the most intractable problems in our field, namely the unequal access of ethnic minority patients to kidney transplant opportunities due to the extreme shortage of organs from donors and other systemic barriers.”
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), more than 100,000 people are waiting for an organ to be transplanted and 17 people die every day while waiting for a transplant in the United States. However, needs are expected to increase in the years to come: according to Journal of the American Society of Nephrologyrates of chronic kidney disease will increase 29 to 68 percent in the United States by 2030.”Seventy years after the first kidney transplant and six decades after the advent of immunosuppressive drugs, we are on the cusp of a monumental breakthrough in the field of transplantationestimates Leonardo V. Riella who led this operation. I am firmly convinced that xenotransplantation represents a promising solution to the organ shortage.”
-1730888646.jpg "Kidney donation while alive: “It was an act of love that I did for my sister”")
