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Transplant medicine doctor in the operating room
Photo: Waltraud Grubitzsch / picture alliance / dpa
Doctors have successfully implanted pig kidneys in the body of a brain-dead patient for the first time.
"The transplanted kidneys filtered blood, produced urine and, importantly, were not rejected immediately," said doctors at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, USA.
The kidneys remained active for 77 hours before the experiment was terminated.
The dean of the college's medical school, Selwyn Vickers, spoke of a "remarkable achievement for mankind" and an advance in the field of xenotransplantation.
The term stands for the transplantation of organs from one species to another, specifically from animals to humans.
As early as last September, doctors from New York University connected a pig kidney to a brain-dead patient.
However, the kidney was attached to blood vessels on the patient's leg and not transplanted into his body.
Even then, there was no rejection of the foreign organ in the patient.
Such immune reactions of the body had previously been observed by transplant experts in non-genetically modified pig kidneys, some of which were used in primates.
The University of Alabama team inserted two pig kidneys into the body of a 57-year-old brain dead man during his operation.
According to the doctors, this means an additional step towards future use in patients who need donor kidneys.
The operation also took place last September, and the results of the study have now been published in the American Journal of Transplantation.
The kidneys of a genetically modified pig were used for the transplant.
The genetic changes are intended to prevent the human body from rejecting the organs.
Recently, US physicians from the University of Maryland had successfully implanted a pig heart in a patient for the first time.
This was not a brain-dead patient.
The university said Jan. 10 the 57-year-old man was doing well three days after the procedure.
Because of the lack of human donor organs, researchers have high hopes for xenotransplantation.
Heart valves from pigs and pigskin for burn victims are already being transplanted.
Pigs are considered ideal donor animals because of their size, rapid growth and good breeding qualities.
joe/AFP
