Woman receives pig kidney in unprecedented surgery after living with artificial heart

A 54-year-old woman has become the second person to receive a pig kidney in an unprecedented transplant. The announcement was made this Wednesday (24/4) by the team of surgeons at NYU Langone Health in New York.

The named patient, Lisa Pisano, from New Jersey (USA), suffered from heart and kidney failure, received the organ on April 12, just eight days after having a mechanical heart pump fitted. According to NYU, the surgeries were performed by those at the University and she received the kidney on April 12, just eight days after having the mechanical heart pump installed.

The transplanted kidney was from a genetically modified pig provided by United Therapeutics Corp., a biotechnology company. The animal carried a gene for producing a sugar called alpha-gal that had been “turned off” or blocked.

Studies from NYU Langone Health have shown that removing the gene reduces the risk of a serious immune reaction in a patient, which can lead to immediate rejection of an organ transplant from an animal, a process called xenotransplantation.

The institute’s surgeons also placed the pig’s thymus gland under the transplanted kidney, which can reprogram the patient’s immune system to reduce the likelihood of rejection.

The woman, who was ineligible to receive human organs due to her advanced illness, said in a statement issued by the hospital that she was eager to gain more time so she could watch her grandchildren grow up.

“After I was ruled out for a human transplant, I discovered I didn’t have much time left,” Pisano said. “My doctors thought there might be a chance I could be approved to receive a gene-edited pig kidney, so I discussed it with my family and my husband.”

The first patient to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig was a 62-year-old man at Mass General Brigham in Boston, who underwent the procedure last month. That patient, Richard Slayman, has since been released from the hospital.

With Folhapress

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