Last March Richard Slayman from Massachusetts became the first living human to receive a pig kidney. But unfortunately last weekend he passed away. But the doctor from Massachusetts General Hospital who performed the xenotransplant surgery on him said the death was not caused by complications with the received organ.
He has end-stage kidney disease and is facing problems getting a replacement organ due to his age. Doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital made him the first living human to receive a pig kidney that has been genetically edited to make it suitable for human use. After more than a week, the organ was found to function normally with no signs of rejection.
Before Slayman, two transplants of pig kidneys into human bodies were performed but the recipients had already suffered brain death. After two weeks the organs are removed again and they die.
Although Slayman has passed away, his family thanked the doctors at MGH for allowing him to live for another seven weeks. Without the pig kidney transplant, he might have died sooner.
We have followed various efforts in the medical world to use animal organs instead of human organs. Pigs are preferred because the size of the organ is comparable to humans and animals reach maturity within three months. Each pig will receive genetic treatment to improve compatibility with the recipient's human body.
The kidney was the first major organ to be successfully transplanted from one human body to another human recipient in December 1954. It was followed by the liver, heart and pancreas. Although the technology has existed for almost 70 years, it is still not able to save the lives of all patients who need organs due to the lack of donors.