Surgeons transplanted a kidney and thymus gland from a gene-edited pig into a 54-year-old woman in an attempt to extend her life. It's the latest experimental use of animal organs in humans.
Dr. Jeffrey Stern, assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, prepare the gene-edited pig kidney with thymus for transplantation.
Ten days earlier, Pisano became the second living person in the world to get a kidney from a genetically modified pig transplanted into her body to replace her ownPisano also got a thymus gland from the same genetically engineered pig to help prevent her body from rejecting the kidney, as well as a pump to shore up her failing heart.
"I didn't really have a life," she said."I didn't do anything. I just sat around. I couldn't get up and do anything. I couldn't even cook dinner. I couldn't vacuum. I couldn't play with my grandkids because I couldn't bend down to get them. I just couldn't do anything with them. And that is the most horrible feeling in the world. That was really, really tearing me apart. I was almost at the point of giving up. It was terrible.
"When we brought her into the hospital, she was in really bad shape," said Montgomery."None of us could have imagined that it would have gone this smoothly." Beyond Pisano's case, much more research is needed before organs from genetically modified pigs could become commonly used."It's still early," Montgomery said."These are early days. There's still a lot we need to learn and perfect."
"I think there are worries about conducting these experiments in this way, where we are finding the most desperate patients who have no other options," said"Maybe those patients will benefit. Maybe they believe they will benefit and that the risks are worthwhile for them. But I do worry about whether or not we are taking advantage of particularly vulnerable and desperate patients in conducting these experiments," Johnson said.
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