Text/Tao Chun, Contributing Writer of CC Intelligence Bureau
On March 21, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced that their team of doctors successfully transplanted 69 genetically modified pig kidneys into a 62-year-old man with kidney failure on March 16, the world's first, marking the first time that a pig kidney was transplanted into a living person, bringing hope to patients with suffering organs around the world.
But the pig's kidney, which ran in the man's body for 57 days, failed after 57 days.
On May 11, the Massachusetts General Hospital, which was in charge of the operation, confirmed that Sleman died 57 days after undergoing the operation, and that there was no indication that the transplant resulted in his death.
"The Massachusetts General Hospital transplant team is deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Mr. Rick Sleman," the MGU statement read. "Mr. Sleman will always be held up as a beacon of hope for countless transplant patients around the world, and we are deeply grateful for his trust and willingness to advance the field of xenotransplantation. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Mr. Sleman's family and loved ones. Remember an extraordinary man whose generosity and kindness touched all who knew him. ”
Sleman underwent a kidney transplant at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital on March 16 and was discharged on April 6, when the hospital assessed that the kidney would allow him to live at least two more years.
Sleman was the first living patient to receive a pig kidney transplant, and there has been a precedent in the past for transplanting pig kidneys to brain-dead patients. In October 2021, surgeons at NYU Lange Medical Center transplanted a pig kidney into a brain-dead human for 54 hours. Another world-first patient to receive a pig heart transplant died after surviving for 60 days.
In January 2022, a team at the University of Maryland School of Medicine performed the world's first transgenic pig heart transplant on a male patient with advanced heart disease, but he died after surviving for two months.
Doctors did not provide a specific cause of death. It was reported that the cause of death of the patient may have been the presence of a virus in the transplanted gene-edited pig heart.
On June 22, 2022, NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine) released the results of the world's first study of porcine heart transplant patients for the first time, and concluded that the results of the autopsy of the patient's heart did not match the typical xenograft rejection.
The MIT Technology Review reported on May 4, 2022, that the cause of death may have been the presence of a virus in the transplanted gene-edited pig heart. And it is believed that "porcine cytomegalovirus is a preventable infection, which means that the failure of this experiment was caused by some avoidable error".
On April 12 this year, the world's second case of pig kidney and the first artificial heart were successfully operated on. Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old female patient in the United States, suffers from end-stage heart failure and kidney failure, diabetes, colon cancer, and has high levels of "harmful antibodies" to human tissues.
The team of Robert Montgomery, M.D., at NYU Langone Health, decided to implant Pisano with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) followed by a pig kidney transplant. The patient showed no signs of organ rejection and had good kidney function since surgery.
There is currently no comment from NYU Langone Health.
Sleman's death has cast a shadow over human pig organ transplantation, because there has not been a single pig organ transplant survivor who has survived for more than a year.
It is understood that the transplant team at Massachusetts General Hospital has conducted an in-depth investigation into Sleman's death. But some experts speculate that the death of the pig kidney transplant may still be related to the potential virus of the pig kidney.
Despite this, the Massachusetts General Hospital statement said it would continue to explore safer and more reliable xenograft methods for pig organs.