Doctors transplanted two pig kidneys to a human for the first time in the US

In the United States, for the first time in the history of medicine, doctors transplanted two pig kidneys to a person at once. According to TASS, the American Journal of Transplantation writes about this.

Last fall, scientists first transplanted a human and a pig kidney. And now the first successful operation to transplant two kidneys to a person at once, which were grown in the body of pigs. For this experiment, scientists needed permission from relatives of a 57-year-old man who fell into a coma and donated his organs to science.

To ensure it, geneticists removed or replaced with human counterparts ten sections of pig DNA associated with blood clotting, cell growth, and the operation of the “friend or foe” system. As a result, the transplanted organs became not only “invisible” to the immune system, but also acquired compatibility with the circulatory systems of carriers of all types of blood.

After raising several of these pigs, the scientists removed their kidneys and implanted them in a patient. Both organs took root and in the first half hour after transplantation began to cleanse the blood of toxins. Over the next three days of observation, Lock and her colleagues did not record any evidence that bleeding or other malfunctions occurred inside the pig kidneys, potentially associated with high pressure in the human circulatory system.

Doctors hope that thanks to such a transplant, it will be possible to save the lives of several hundred thousand patients every year, who die due to the lack of suitable donors for kidney transplants.