WASHINGTON — A woman who received a pig kidney transplant will once again be undergoing dialysis after surgeons were forced to remove the slowly failing organ just 47 days later.
Lisa Pisano is the second person to receive a kidney from a gene-edited pig, and NYU Langone Health announced she is in stable condition after undergoing surgery to remove the organ earlier this week.
The first patient to receive a pig kidney transplant, Richard “Rick” Sleiman of Massachusetts General Hospital, died in early May, about two months after the transplant, though doctors at the hospital said there was no sign that he died as a result of the experimental transplant.
Pisano's heart and kidneys had failed, so in April doctors performed two dramatic surgeries to implant a mechanical pump to keep her heart beating, and then transplanted a pig kidney.
At first, she appeared to be recovering well, but Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led the transplant, said managing both the heart pump and the new kidney presented “unique challenges” and her blood pressure was often too low for optimal blood flow to her kidney.
Montgomery said in a statement Friday that her kidneys were failing and doctors could no longer continue administering her immune-suppressing medication.
Although a recent kidney biopsy showed no signs of rejection — a major concern in highly experimental animal-to-human transplants — there had been “significant damage” from lack of blood flow, he said. NYU plans to further study the removed kidney to get a better idea of how it responded in a living human body.
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Montgomery noted that while Pisano is on dialysis, she is not a candidate for a life-prolonging heart pump, and her heart condition also makes a traditional kidney transplant impossible.
“We hope that Lisa can return home to her family soon,” he said. “Her strength and courage in the face of adversity motivates us to continue pursuing the hope and possibilities of xenotransplantation.”
Pisano told The Associated Press in April that he knew the pig kidneys might not work but “I just took a chance. Worst case scenario, even if it didn't work for me, maybe it would work for someone else.”
More than 100,000 people are on the transplant waiting list in the United States, most of them people who need kidneys, and thousands die while waiting. To make up for the shortage of organ donations, several biotech companies are genetically modifying pigs to make their organs more human-like and less likely to be destroyed by the human immune system.
Formal studies of these organs are scheduled to begin next year. Meanwhile, teams at New York University and elsewhere have seen promising results with temporarily transplanting pig kidneys and hearts into brain-dead bodies. In addition to Massachusetts General's pig kidney transplants, the University of Maryland transplanted pig hearts into two men who had no other options, but both died within months.
