All four patients who received pig organs to replace their diseased organs have died, but the researchers involved in these transplants say they will continue to work to improve this alternative source of organs.
Lisa Pisano, the fourth xenotransplant patient and the second to receive a pig kidney, died Sunday. The other three patients died within two months of receiving the transplant.
Pisano received his kidney transplant on April 12. Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led Pisano’s care team at NYU Langone Health, said in a statement that medications supporting Pisano’s blood pressure caused his kidney to fail, and it had to be removed on May 29. Pisano was on dialysis until his death.
Pisano, 54, of New Jersey, also has an LVAD heart pump attached to support his weakened organs and was in very poor health when he agreed to the experimental double surgery in April.
Researchers have been trying for years to edit the genes of animals to make them more suitable for organ transplants.
More than 100,000 Americans are waiting for organ donations, which usually come after a tragedy has happened to another family member, and many, like Pisano, never qualify for a transplant waiting list because they are too sick or deemed ineligible.
The hope is that pigs, whose organs have been gene-edited to make them less likely to be rejected by the human immune system, could be used to replace human organs, but for decades animal research has faced repeated problems and progress has been painfully slow.
The first clinical trials of pig organs in humans — two heart transplants at the University of Maryland in 2022 and 2023, and a kidney transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital, NYU Pisano in April — were supposed to jumpstart the field. But no patients who received pig organs survived more than two months.
Still, the researchers are committed to continuing their research.
“Lisa’s contributions to medicine, surgery and xenotransplantation cannot be overstated,” said Montgomery, director of the New York University Langone Transplant Institute. “Her courage gave hope to thousands of people living with end-stage renal and heart failure that they may soon benefit from a replacement organ supply.”
Karen Weintraub can be reached at kweintraub@usatoday.com.
