American hospital doctor first transplants a pig kidney into a living person. The patient recovers. This college is expected to continue for many more years.
Foreign news agencies reported that doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States revealed, on Thursday, March 21, 2024, that they had performed a kidney transplant from a pig. Which underwent genetic modification and was given to living humans for the first time in the world
The patient is 62-year-old Rick Solomon, a director with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Which was diagnosed as end-stage renal disease. He had the surgery last Saturday (March 16), which took about 4 hours, and Mr. Suleiman is now recovering. He is expected to be released from the hospital soon
According to Dr. Tatsuo Kawai, the doctor who operated on Mr. Suleiman, he said: The size of this pig's kidney is exactly the same size as a human kidney. When they connect it to the patient's blood vessels, it immediately turns pink and begins producing urine, and the 15 medical staff in the operating room applaud with joy.
The medical team at Massachusetts General Hospital expects this new kidney should last for many years. But he admits there is still a lot they don't know about animal-to-human organ transplants.
Mr. Suleiman revealed this in a written statement. Which the hospital published saying that he has been a patient in the hospital’s kidney transplant program for 11 years, and in 2018, he received a human kidney. Who have lived with diabetes and high blood pressure for many years
But his kidneys started showing signs of failing after five years, and he had to start dialysis again in 2023 before he was diagnosed. It is end-stage kidney disease. Then the doctor advised him to try a pig kidney transplant.
“I see this not only as a way to help myself. But it is also a way to give hope to thousands of people who need a kidney transplant to survive,” Suleiman said in a statement.
In the United States, there is a large number of patients waiting for organ transplants. But the number of donated organs is insufficient, as 17 patients die in the United States every day while waiting for an organ transplant. The kidneys are considered the most deficient organ.
According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, in 2023, there were only 27,000 kidney transplants, but nearly 89,000 people were on organ waiting lists.
Transplanting organs from animals to humans has become a hope to solve this shortage. Through the work of Massachusetts General Hospital, this is the third live-in pig-to-human organ transplant in the world, with the first two heart transplants being for patients who had no other options. But they both died a few weeks after surgery.
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