A MAN survived nine months with a pig’s kidney in a world-first procedure before he got a transplant from a human donor.
Shop manager Tim Andrews, 68, was able to stop dialysis treatment after the animal’s organ was implanted.
Tim Andrews survived nine months with a pig’s kidney in a world-first procedure before he got a transplant from a human donor Credit: PA
Tim was able to stop dialysis treatment after the animal’s organ was implanted Credit: PA
The pig had been genetically engineered to have some genes turned off to prevent a human body rejecting the kidney.
Mr Andrews also took medicine to stop his immune system attacking it.
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The organ continued to work inside him for 271 days — nearly 39 weeks — while he waited for a human kidney to replace his own which had failed.
He lived with the pig organ from January to October last year, when it eventually stopped working.
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For three months, Mr Andrews then returned to dialysis — which requires regular hospital visits to clean the blood with a machine — before receiving a human kidney from a dead donor in January.
His doctors say it is the first time that “bridging” with an animal organ — a process known as xenotransplantation — has been proven to work, and also the first dialysis-free survival for more than two months.
Mr Andrews, from Concord, New Hampshire, US, is doing well after the groundbreaking procedure and said: “I’m laughing again. I’m free.”
The transplant was carried out at Mass General Brigham Hospital in Boston, US, by a team led by Dr Leonardo Riella, with details published in journal The Lancet.
He lived with the pig organ from January to October last year, when it eventually stopped working Credit: PA
Dr Riella said: “The best treatment option for patients with end-stage kidney disease is transplantation, but we simply don’t have enough human organs.
“Our vision is that xenotransplantation may help address this gap. Initially this would be as a bridge to get patients off dialysis while they wait for a human donor kidney, and potentially as a therapy in its own right.”
He added: “The patients are the true pioneers here. Without their trust and courage, we would not be able to do what we do.”
Around two million Britons have chronic kidney disease and one in 50 — two per cent — progress to kidney failure.
Kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organ and nearly 7,000 people are on NHS waiting lists for the procedure.
Some scientists believe we are only years away from farming pigs on an industrial scale to generate organs and tissue grafts for humans.
