Surgeons at NYU Langone Health announced Wednesday that a critically ill 54-year-old woman became the second person to receive a kidney transplant from a genetically engineered pig earlier this month.
The patient, who had both heart and kidney failure, received the organ on April 12, just eight days after being fitted with a mechanical heart pump. A surgical team from New York University Langone performed two surgeries on him over a nine-day period.
Lisa Pisano, a kidney recipient from New Jersey, would have been at risk of death without a heart pump, a medical device used for patients in need of a heart transplant.
The kidneys were taken from genetically engineered pigs provided by biotechnology company United Therapeutics Corporation. The pigs had a gene that produced a sugar called alpha-gal “knocked out,” or blocked.
New York University Langone Health research shows that removing the gene reduces the risk of severe immune reactions in patients that can lead to immediate rejection of organs transplanted from animals (a process called xenotransplantation). is shown.
Surgeons at New York University Langone also used pig thymus, which can reprogram a patient's immune system to avoid rejecting pig organs, to reduce the chance of rejection. placed below.
The woman could have died without a heart pump and was ineligible to receive a small number of human organs due to her progressive disease, but in a statement released by the hospital, the hospital said it would be more than happy to see her. He said he wanted to buy time. Grandchildren grow up.
“After I was ruled out for a human transplant, I realized I didn't have much time left,” Pisano said. “Doctors thought I might be approved for a gene-edited pig kidney transplant, so I discussed this with my family and husband.”
The first patient to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig was a 62-year-old man at Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital in Boston who underwent surgery just last month. The patient, Richard “Rick” Suleiman, has already been released from the hospital.
Pisano's case is the first time a patient with a heart pump, also known as a left ventricular assist device, has received any sort of organ transplant, NYU Langone health officials said. In kidney failure, patients usually cannot receive a heart pump because of the high risk of death.
Dr. Nader Moazami, head of the division of heart and lung transplantation at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine, said the series of surgeries is highly unusual, if not unprecedented. He underwent heart pump surgery on April 4 under Dr. Dean E. Smith.
“This unique approach marks the first time in the world that left ventricular assist device surgery has been performed on a dialysis patient scheduled for a kidney transplant,” said Dr. Moazami.
This xenotransplant is considered experimental and was approved by the New York University Langone Institutional Review Board and approved by the Food and Drug Administration's Compassionate Use or Expanded Access Program for Patients with Severe or Life-Threatening Conditions. Approved under.
Dr. Robert Montgomery, Chair and Director of the Department of Surgery, New York University; The Rangoon Transplant Institute led the kidney transplant surgery. Dr. Montgomery performed the first genetically engineered pig kidney xenotransplant in September 2021, attaching the organ to a brain-dead patient who was being maintained on a ventilator, and demonstrating that the organ is functional and produces urine.
Since then, he has performed four similar transplants, including one last year in which he observed a brain-dead patient for 61 days.