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Surgeons Perform World’s First Combined Heart Pump And Pig Kidney Transplant—Latest Breakthrough Involving Pig Organ

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Surgeons Perform World’s First Combined Heart Pump And Pig Kidney Transplant—Latest Breakthrough Involving Pig Organ

Topline

Surgeons at NYU Langone Health announced Wednesday they completed the world’s first successful combined heart pump and gene-edited pig kidney transplant surgeries on a 54-year-old woman with end-stage kidney disease, a landmark procedure that closely follows the first successful transplant of a pig kidney in late March.

Key Facts

Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old woman from New Jersey, was facing heart failure and undergoing routine dialysis for end-stage kidney disease—but was not eligible for heart or kidney transplants given the reduced likelihood of success due to several chronic illnesses, NYU Langone Health said.

The hospital said Pisano was matched to a gene-edited kidney of a pig with an attached thymus from United Therapeutics Corp., called a “UThymoKidney.”

Pisano underwent the two procedures over the course of nine days in early April, according to a press release, the first of which involved implanting a heart pump, dubbed a left ventricular assist device, and the second being a xenotransplant of the pig kidney on April 12.

NYU Langone Health cardiac surgeon Dr. Nader Moazami said in a statement Pisano would not have been eligible for an LVAD without a kidney transplant due to “high mortality in patients on dialysis with heart pumps,” going on to say: “This unique approach is the first time in the world that LVAD surgery has been done on a dialysis patient with a subsequent plan to transplant a kidney.”

Pisano is currently recovering in the ICU and is expected to have at least a month of rehabilitation before she can potentially be discharged, according to CNN, and transplant surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery told NPR Pisano may need several months of rehabilitation.

Tangent

Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital announced in late March that the world’s first successful transplant of a kidney was completed on a 62-year-old male patient suffering from end-stage kidney disease.

Big Number

More than 89,000. That’s the number of people on the national transplant waiting list who are in need of a kidney as of March, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. More than 103,000 people are on the national organ transplant waiting list.

Surprising Fact

NYU Langone Health completed the first experimental transplant of a pig kidney on a brain-dead patient in September 2021.

Key Background

Xenotransplantation refers to any procedure involving the “transplantation, implantation or infusion” of non-human organs, tissues or cells, according to the Food and Drug Administration. It has become more frequently studied as the need for organs grows. The procedure is not currently approved by the FDA, but it is allowed under the agency’s expanded access, or “compassionate use,” pathway, which allows patients to seek out experimental treatments under certain conditions, such as life-threatening issues. Seventeen people die each day while waiting for an organ, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration, and a new person is added to the national transplant waiting list every eight minutes. Given the increasing need for organs, doctors hope that xenotransplants will become an alternative to human organs to save more lives while also improving patient quality of life.

Further Reading

World’s First Pig Kidney Transplant Given To Massachusetts Man (Forbes)

Doctors Transplant Pig Heart Into Dying Man—Only The Second Time It’s Ever Been Done (Forbes)

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