A patient who has been surviving with a kidney harvested from a pig has died two months after the world first transplant after suffering from end-stage kidney disease.
The 62 year old Richard “Rick” Slayman is said to have undergone the first Pig Kidney Transplant in March making it the first such operation in the world, and has been recuperating since then.
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However, the hospital that conducted the operation, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) said that at the moment, there is no indication that his death was a result of the transplant that made a huge breakthrough for science.
“Mr Slayman will forever be seen as a beacon of hope to countless transplant patients worldwide and we are deeply grateful for his trust and willingness to advance the field of xenotransplantation.”
He was also suffering from Type 2 diabetes and hypertension in addition to the end-stage kidney disease. In 2018, he got a kidney donor and transplant was done but started to fail after five years.
According to a statement released immediately after he received the pig kidney, his doctors confirmed he no longer needed dialysis after the new organ was said to be functioning well.
However, this is not the first case that pig organs have been transferred to humans. Two other patients have received pig heart transplants but unfortunately they were unsuccessful as the patients died moments after the procedures.
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Doctors who handled the cases claimed that the immune systems of these patients rejected the organs upon transplant thus leading to their deaths after the procedure.