After the transplant of a heart and kidney from genetically modified pigs, for the first time a similar procedure was also attempted for the liver: it was transplanted into a 50-year-old man who was already clinically dead at the time of the operation and remained attached to his his blood vessels for 10 days, even though the original liver was left in place.
The operation, performed in China at the Xijing Hospital of the Xi'an Air Force Medical University, was successful: as reported by the magazine Nature on its website, the pig liver functioned regularly, and before being removed, he showed no signs of rejection.
"It is very interesting that we have reached this point, this new path that has been opened and the successes obtained will allow us to obtain new precious information", Cesare Galli, pioneer of research on genetically modified animals for transplants, founder and director of Avantea of Cremona.
"These tests, therefore, are welcome - states Galli - made possible by patients who donate their bodies to research".
The procedure aimed to go a step further to see whether genetically modified pig organs could be a viable alternative for transplants in the future, as human donors are far short of demand.
In the United States, for example, over 100,000 people are currently on waiting lists and every day 17 people die waiting for an organ.
In Italy, there are around 8,000 patients on the list, with average waiting times that can even exceed 6 years.
The liver is theoretically easier than other organs, since it is also possible to remove only a part of the donor's liver, but it is also an organ that performs many complex functions and this makes transplantation particularly difficult.
In fact, while xenotransplants (transplants performed with organs of different species) of the heart and kidneys are seen as possible long-term organ replacements, those of the liver are mainly considered as temporary solutions.
"The aim is to save the patient time while waiting for a human donor - explains Galli - I don't immediately see the possibility of longer-term applications".
In recent years, several heart and kidney transplants from pigs have already been carried out in people declared dead, but also in living patients.
In the United States, for example, a pig kidney has just been transplanted into a 62-year-old man suffering from a terminal illness, the first procedure of its kind.
"It's easier for the kidney - adds the director of Avantea - because in case of failure the person can always be put back on dialysis".
Another operation involving a modified pig liver was performed in January, but was linked to the clinically deceased patient remaining outside the body and circulating the person's blood for three days.
In the operation carried out last March 10 in China, the liver came from a pig with six genetic modifications which aim to avoid rejection of the organ by the recipient.
The researchers plan to repeat the procedure on another clinically dead person later this year, and next time they will also remove the human liver.
But although these studies are useful for evaluating the feasibility of xenotransplantations in living people, procedures performed on people with no brain activity (therefore officially declared dead) can provide limited information.
"It is a compromise - concludes Cesare Galli - it is clear that in patients in a state of brain death some functions are altered and the experiments cannot last very long (the longest documented case lasted two months), but it is in any case a positive intermediate phase".
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