In the USA, a pig kidney has been successfully inserted into a living human for the first time in the world. The man, who suffers from life-threatening kidney disease, had the genetically modified organ transplanted on Saturday. said Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts on Thursday. The procedure lasted four hours, the patient is recovering well and will probably be discharged soon. Previously, doctors had only used pig kidneys in brain-dead people to test the procedure.
The transplant could mean hope for countless people who rely on donor organs. The so-called xenotransplantation has been researched since the 1980s. Pigs are particularly suitable as donors because their metabolism is similar to that of humans.
Scientists have been trying for some time to make pig organs usable for humans. In order for this to be possible, the genetic makeup of the donor animals must, among other things, be changed. Without genetic adaptation, transmission to humans would result in an immediate, severe rejection reaction.
Most recently, two seriously ill patients at the University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, had pig hearts implanted as replacement organs in recent years. However, both patients had died several weeks after surgery. Similar interventions are also planned in Germany in the foreseeable future.