Chinese researchers report pig liver transplant in brain-dead patient

Chinese researchers are reporting two new steps in the quest for pig-to-human organ transplants: a successful pig kidney transplant and an experiment with a pig liver.

Chinese researchers are reporting new steps in the quest for animal-to-human organ transplants — with a successful pig kidney transplant and a hint Wednesday that pig livers might eventually be useful, too.

A Chinese patient is the third person in world known to be living with a gene-edited pig kidney. And the same research team also reported an experiment implanting a pig liver into a brain-dead person.

Scientists are genetically altering pigs so their organs are more humanlike in hopes of alleviating a transplant shortage. Two initial xenotransplants in the U.S. — two pig hearts and two pig kidneys — were short-lived. But two additional pig kidney recipients so far are thriving — an Alabama woman who received a transplant in November and a New Hampshire man who received one in January. A U.S. clinical trial is about to begin.

Nearly three weeks after the kidney surgery the Chinese patient “is very well” and the pig kidney likewise is functioning very well, Dr. Lin Wang, of Xijing Hospital of the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi’an, told reporters in a briefing this week.

Wang, part of the hospital’s xenotransplant team, said the kidney recipient remains in the hospital for testing. Chinese media have reported she is a 69-year-old woman who was diagnosed with kidney failure eight years ago.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/pig-liver-transplant-rcna196246

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