Surgeons at Mass General Brigham hospital report that a kidney transplanted from a pig has functioned inside a human patient for 271 days, setting a new global record for xenotransplantation. The procedure provided a critical bridge for Tim Andrews, who had been awaiting a compatible human donor.<\/p>\n
Andrews stated that the transplant offered him “hope” and relieved him of the need to undergo dialysis several times a week. Dialysis, which filters blood artificially, is a demanding treatment that limits patients’ mobility and quality of life. However, the pig kidney eventually failed, necessitating its removal. Andrews required a brief return to dialysis before a suitable human donor kidney became available.<\/p>\n
Medical professionals are increasingly investigating xenotransplantation\u2014using organs from other species\u2014as a solution to severe organ shortages. In the United States, approximately 100,000 individuals are waiting for a kidney transplant, yet only about 25,000 procedures are performed annually. Similarly, more than 7,000 people in the UK are on the kidney transplant waiting list.<\/p>\n
The urgency of the situation was highlighted by Andrews’ own prognosis. He was informed that reaching the top of the waiting list could take seven years, whereas the average lifespan for a patient on dialysis is only five years. “I had a little bit of a shortage of time\u2026 it becomes very depressing,” Andrews said. Despite the eventual failure of the xenograft, he described the possibility of pig organ transplants as a “light at the end of the tunnel,” emphasizing that the chance to live free from dialysis machines was the most significant benefit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A genetically modified pig kidney functioned for 271 days in a US patient, marking the longest recorded success for xenotransplantation and offering hope amid organ shortages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[259,596,597,626,625],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-health","tag-medicine","tag-transplant","tag-us-health","tag-xenotransplantation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}