BOSTON – The first human being who received transplanted pig’s kidney died months after historic transplant.
Rick Slayman, 62, received the modified kidney after suffering from end-stage kidney disease. The medical team said there was no sign that his death was a result of a surgical procedure.
The first recipient of a pig kidney underwent ‘life-changing’ surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in April. After the surgery, doctors believed the new kidney could last for years, but noted the suspicions of animal-to-human transplants.
The medical team praised Slayman’s role in advancing xenotransplantation and expressed condolences to his family.
The deceased family members remembered him as a kind and inspiring individual. He had been a patient in the hospital’s transplant program for 11 years and had previously received a kidney from a human donor in 2018.
For the unversed, medical teams in the US performed two prior transplants using pig organs but it resulted in patients’ deaths.
How Pig Organs Found Their Way into Human Bodies
US medical teams achieved success by transplanting genetically modified pig hearts into monkeys, which were not rejected by baboons’ immune systems. However, the hearts stopped working after some time.
Later, the team developed preservation technique and first successful transplant of a genetically modified pig heart was done.
Alabama University also successfully transplanted pig kidneys into brain-dead individuals, demonstrating the potential of sucy surgeries to address organ shortage crisis.
Historic as Pakistani doctor transplants genetically modified pig’s heart into human
