New Hampshire man is 2nd recipient of a pig kidney from Massachusetts General Hospital
BOSTON - For the second time in less than a year, a surgical team at Massachusetts General Hospital has transplanted a genetically edited pig kidney into a human.
The recipient is 66-year-old Timothy Andrews of Concord, New Hampshire, who was suffering from end-stage renal failure. His condition was worsening on dialysis, and it would have taken five to 10 years for him to potentially receive a human kidney.
When Andrews learned he could be a candidate for a "xenotransplant," the term for getting an organ from an animal, his doctors say he "enthusiastically agreed."
"Immediately after the first transplant I wanted to be in this," Andrews said in a video released Friday by Mass. General. "You can see the light at the end of the tunnel, all of a sudden I am not in the darkness."
It's a "groundbreaking achievement once again in the field of transplant surgery," said Dr. Shimul Shah, the division chief of abdominal transplantation surgery at Mass General Brigham.
Mass. General previously performed first-ever pig kidney transplant
Last March, Mass. General announced a pig kidney has been transplanted into a man for the first time ever. That patient from Weymouth, who doctors said Friday was "in a much tougher health situation," died about two months after the transplant for health reasons unrelated to his new kidney, according to the hospital.
A handful of other pig kidney transplants have taken place around the country since then, with an Alabama woman saying last month that she feels like "superwoman" after more than two months with her new organ.
Right now, researchers hope pig kidneys will be able to last for three years or more.
"We're witnessing a future that many thought was far in the distance," said Michael Curtis, the CEO of Cambridge-based eGenesis, which provided the genetically edited pig kidney. "More patients with kidney failure will now have the opportunity to receive a kidney transplant."
More pig kidney transplant trials scheduled
One in seven people in the U.S. has kidney disease, explained Dr. Leo Riella, the medical director for kidney transplantation at Mass General. Transplants are the "ideal treatment," he said, but a severe organ shortage in the country has many patients on dialysis.
"Xenotransplantation represents a turning point by eliminating the organ shortage as a barrier to transplantation," Dr. Riella said.
Two more pig kidney transplants will happen at Mass. General later this year as part of a small FDA-approved study looking at the long-term viability of pig kidneys in humans. If they go well, larger clinical trials could follow.
"It's going to be fantastic"
Andrews had the transplant surgery on Jan. 25 and was able to walk out of the hospital by himself a week later.
"The operation went very smoothly and the kidney started to make urine within 10 minutes," lead transplant surgeon Dr. Tatsuo Kawai said. "He has been doing fine without any complication whatsoever."
Dr. Riella said that when he first met Andrews, he was frail, fatigued and struggling with complications from diabetes. Now he's off dialysis for the first time in more than two years.
"I believe this is the start of something that's going to be fantastic," Andrews said. "It's going to be the option for people that don't want to be on dialysis, they want to be able to be with their kids and loved ones."
