World’s First Pig-Kidney Transplant Patient Dies Two Months After Procedure

The first person to receive a genetically modified pig kidney transplant has died nearly two months after he underwent the procedure, his family and the hospital that performed the surgery said Saturday.

Richard “Rick” Slayman received the transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital in March at the age of 62, with surgeons expecting the pig kidney to last for at least two years.

The transplant team at Massachusetts General Hospital said in a statement it was deeply saddened by Slayman’s passing and offered condolences to his family. They said they didn’t have any indication that he died as a result of the transplant.

Slayman, from Weymouth, Massachusetts, was the first living person to undergo the procedure. Prior to this, pig kidneys had been temporarily transplanted into brain-dead donors. two men received heart transplants from pigs, although both died within months.

Why was a Pig Kidney Suggested?

Slayman underwent a kidney transplant at the hospital in 2018, but he had to go back on dialysis last year when the organ showed signs of failure. When dialysis complications arose, requiring frequent procedures, his doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant.

At the point Slayman was diagnosed with end-stage kidney disease last year, he told CNN what his doctors had suggested.

“I saw it not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive,” Slayman said in the statement. Medical professionals who were not involved in the case said the operation represented a significant milestone in medicine.

“To finally see this come to fruition after years of work and collaboration is really a huge step forward and a great moment for transplant,” Dr Parsia Vagefi, chief of surgical transplantation at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, told CNN.

In a statement, Slayman’s family thanked his doctors.

“Their enormous efforts leading the xenotransplant gave our family seven more weeks with Rick, and our memories made during that time will remain in our minds and hearts,” the statement said.

They said Slayman underwent the surgery in part to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive. “Rick accomplished that goal and his hope and optimism will endure forever,” the statement said.

Xenotransplantation refers to healing human patients with cells, tissues, or organs from animals. Such attempts long failed because the human immune system immediately destroyed foreign animal tissue. Recent efforts have involved pigs that have been modified so their organs are more like that of a human.

More than 100,000 people are on the national waiting list in the US for a transplant, most of them kidney patients, and thousands die every year before their turn comes.