5 months ago
16
NEW YORK: Surgeons removed the kidney of a
genetically engineered pig
from a critically ill
patient
last week after the organ was damaged by inadequate blood flow related to a
heart pump
that the woman had also received, according to officials at NYU Langone Transplant Institute.
The patient,
Lisa Pisano
, 54, who is still hospitalised, went back on kidney dialysis after the pig’s organ was removed.
She lived with the transplanted organ for 47 days, Dr Robert Montgomery, director of the institute, said. The kidney showed no signs of
organ rejection
. “Lisa is in stable condition, and her left ventricular assist device is still functioning,” Montgomery said, referring to the heart pump.
In April, Pisano became the second person to receive a kidney transplanted from a genetically modified pig. Hers was an especially complicated case: She has
heart failure
and kidney failure, and received the organ just eight days after receiving a
mechanical heart pump
. She is the first patient with a heart pump known to have received an organ transplant of any kind, NYU Langone Health officials said.
The first patient to receive a kidney from a genetically engineered pig was Richard Slayman, 62, who underwent the procedure in March in Boston. He suffered from complex medical problems and died within two months.
