Transplants, second patient receives pig kidney in the USA, also underwent heart surgery

Lisa Pisano, 54 years old, originally from New Jersey, seriously ill, was at risk of dying. “I realized I didn't have much time left.” “I was practically finished. I couldn't climb the stairs, I couldn't drive, I couldn't play with my grandchildren. An opportunity came and I took it,” she said, as reported by the US media. This is how she became the second patient to undergo a genetically modified pig kidney transplant, the first to undergo surgery to implant a mechanical pump in the heart and then, after about a week, to also receive the organ pig, including the pig's thymus gland for the first time, to help against rejection. The surgery was illustrated by surgeons from Nyu (New York University) Langone Health in New York, who performed the procedures.

This is a new milestone, experts explain. And the cases of animal-to-human transplants, xenotransplantations, continue to grow. Just last month, surgeons at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston transplanted a pig kidney onto a 62-year-old patient, a world first. Now comes the second intervention of this type. After years and years of studying this procedure, and failures largely due to the human immune system attacking foreign tissue, scientists have gone the route of using a genetic alteration to better match animal organs to humans .

Lisa “is progressing very well” in her recovery, explained Robert Montgomery, director of the Nyu Langone Transplant Institute, according to what we read on 'Cbs News'. And even the patient herself confirms that she feels “great today compared to other days”. The woman, suffering from renal and cardiac failure, first underwent an operation for the placement of a left ventricular assist device. These types of consecutive surgeries are very unusual, if not unprecedented, explained Nader Moazami, Grossman School of Medicine at New York University, as reported by the 'New York Times'. Then it was the turn of the xenotransplant which also included the thymus gland, placed under the transplanted kidney and capable, according to experts, of reprogramming the patient's immune system so that it does not reject the pig's organ. It is an intervention considered experimental, authorized by the Institutional Review Board of Nyu Langone and approved under the compassionate use, or expanded access, program of the Food and Drug Administration (Fda) for patients with serious or life-threatening conditions.