For the first time in history, a group of American surgeons have successfully transplanted a pig kidney into a human being, as part of an experimental procedure performed last month at New York University’s Langone Health Medical Center, he reported. this Wednesday the Reuters agency.
Pig kidneys have long been studied for use in medicine, but a sugar in their cells, galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose (better known as alpha-gal) present in all mammals except humans and other primates had caused immediate immune rejection.
The recent procedure, which involved the kidney of a genetically modified GalSafe pig, represents an important advance in the search for viable alternatives to alleviate the shortage of organs for transplantation in seriously ill patients.
The organ was transplanted into the body of a brain-dead woman, connected to an artificial respirator and with signs of kidney dysfunction. Her family consented to the experiment before turning off her life support. Robert Montgomery, who led the surgical team, said that in the three days that the kidney remained connected to the recipient’s blood vessels, it proved to be working and gave results that “seemed quite normal.”
The creatine level characteristic of poor kidney function stabilized after surgery, and the new organ produced “the amount of urine you would expect” from a transplanted human kidney. There were also no signs of early rejection, the doctor said. It is worth noting that the research has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal.
The nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing, which administers the US organ transplant system, says that about 107,000 people are on the waiting list, of which 90,000 are seeking to receive a kidney. On average, three to five years is the time it takes for the latter to receive a response; a period in which many of those in need, who depend on grueling dialysis treatments to survive, die.
In addition to being an apparently feasible solution to face the clear shortage of organs, the progress made by Montgomery and his team is a significant step in the field of xenotransplantation (the transplantation of cells, tissues or organs between different species), which always They have faced several obstacles, including physiological compatibility and immune rejection.
Although last December the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the use of GalSafe pigs for food and medical purposes, the agency warned that specific approval is still required for transplants in people. alive, picks up the agency AP.
At the same time, there is a need to develop ethical and political guidelines for this practice around the welfare and exploitation of animals. Either way, the experiment paves the way for the first experimental transplants in the next few years, experts say. Source: RT