“Transformer”. Woman undergoes world’s first combined surgery in USA

UA 54-year-old woman, from New Jersey, in the United States, was on the verge of death and, therefore, the medical team that accompanied her decided that a traditional transplant would not work. Then she underwent the world’s first combined surgery: a pig kidney and a heart pump.

Lisa Pisano’s combination of heart and kidney failure left her too sick to qualify for a traditional transplant. It was then that doctors at Patient Care at NYU Langone Health devised a new solution, says the Associated Press (AP).

A mechanical pump was implanted to keep Lisa’s heart beating on April 4th, and eight days later, on April 12th, a kidney from a genetically modified pig was transplanted.

Lisa Pisano was the first woman in the world to have this combined surgery. Now she is recovering well, according to the medical team, in statements this Wednesday.

This week, the patient took a walker and took her first steps.

“I was at the end of my rope. I just took a chance. Worst case scenario, if it doesn’t work for me, it might work for someone else and it might have helped the next person,” Pisano told the AP.

Robert Montgomery, director of the transplant institute, revealed that applause was heard in the operating room when the transplanted kidney began to produce urine.

“It’s been transformative,” said Montgomery about the first results of the experiment.

However, there are still some reservations from the cardiologist surgeon who implanted the heart pump, who emphasizes that “we are not in the clear yet”.

“With this surgery, I can see my wife smile again,” Pisano’s husband, Todd, said Wednesday.

Lisa is the first woman to receive a pig organ. Unlike previous xenotransplantation experiments, both the heart and kidneys had failed. The patient went into cardiorespiratory arrest and had to be resuscitated before experimental surgeries, making her ineligible for a kidney transplant.

“I felt miserable,” says the woman.

Although the evolution is positive and there is no sign of rejection of the organ, says the AP, there is no way to predict the long-term outcome of this double surgery.

Read Also: Man transplanted with modified pig kidney for the first time in the world

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