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Doctors transplant pig kidney into patient in the USA

Doctors in the USA have transplanted a pig kidney into a patient for the first time in the world.(Bild: AFP)

Doctors in the USA have transplanted a pig kidney into a patient (62). The procedure was performed for the first time in the world, as the hospital in Boston announced on Thursday (see video above).

This is a "milestone" in providing seriously ill patients with donor organs. The pig kidney had been genetically modified before the transplant. According to the hospital, genes that are harmful to humans were removed and certain human genes were added.

The 62-year-old recipient Richard Slayman is recovering "well" and is expected to be discharged from hospital soon. The US-American suffered from advanced kidney disease and recently had to undergo dialysis. He had already received a human donor kidney in 2018, but it began to fail last year.

The hospital in Boston(Bild: AP)

The procedure on the 62-year-old kidney patient(Bild: AFP)

Patient: "Procedure gives hope"
Previously, pig kidney transplants had only been performed on people who were already brain dead. In these cases, the genetically adapted pig kidney had performed its functions normally. The 62-year-old now said that he had not only agreed to the procedure "to help myself." This procedure gives "hope to thousands of people who need a transplant to survive."

In fact, the shortage of donor organs is a worldwide problem. At Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) alone, more than 1,400 people are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. 

Medical research is therefore increasingly relying on organs from animals. This branch of research is known as xenotransplantation. In 2022, doctors in the USA transplanted two human hearts from pigs for the first time in the world. However, both died within two months of the operation.