Tag Archives: Kidneys

This Kidney Was Frozen for 10 Days. Could Surgeons Transplant It?

This Kidney Was Frozen for 10 Days. Could Surgeons Transplant It?

On the last day of March, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital began an operation that they hoped might lead to a permanent change in how kidneys are transplanted in people. That morning’s patient was not a person. It was a pig, lying anesthetized on a table. The pig was missing one kidney and needed an implant. While kidneys typically must …

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Pig Kidney Removed From Alabama Woman After Organ Rejection

Pig Kidney Removed From Alabama Woman After Organ Rejection

Surgeons removed a genetically engineered pig’s kidney from an Alabama woman after she experienced acute organ rejection, NYU Langone Health officials said on Friday. Towana Looney, 53, lived with the kidney for 130 days, which is longer than anyone else has tolerated an organ from a genetically modified animal. She has resumed dialysis, hospital officials said. Dr. Robert Montgomery, Ms. …

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For Patients Needing Transplants, Hope Arrives on Tiny Hooves

For Patients Needing Transplants, Hope Arrives on Tiny Hooves

More than 100,000 Americans are on waiting lists for donor organs, most needing a kidney. Only 25,000 human donor kidneys become available each year. Twelve Americans on the kidney list die every day on average. Scientists first transplanted genetically engineered pig organs into other animals and then to brain-dead human patients. In 2022, researchers received permission to transplant the organs …

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Surgeons Transplant Engineered Pig Kidney Into Fourth Patient

Surgeons Transplant Engineered Pig Kidney Into Fourth Patient

Surgeons in Boston successfully transplanted the kidney of a genetically modified pig into a 66-year-old man with kidney failure last month, Massachusetts General Hospital announced on Friday. It was the fourth pig kidney transplant in the United States, and the first of three that will be done at Mass General as part of a new clinical trial sanctioned by the …

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