This miracle occurred in Boston where doctors have successfully transplanted a pig kidney into a 62 year old patient and have given new insights on our continuous search for the possibility of using animal organs in humans.
The Massachusetts General Hospital on Thursday claimed that this was the first time that they have transplanted an organ from a genetically modified pig. Before this experiment, pig kidneys were transplanted in brain dead donors. It is also known that two men have received heart transplants from pigs although both of them had unfortunately died within two months.
The miracle patient who received this pig kidney, Richard “Rick” Slaymn of Weymouth is from Massachusetts, is reported to have been recovering well from the surgery last Saturday and is soon to be expected to get discharged according to the doctors.
The doctor who did this transplant surgery, Dr. Tatsuo Kawai said that the team is hopeful that the pig kidney will work for at least two years. And if it fails due to any circumstances, Slayman could go back on dialysis, said the kidney expert Dr. Winfred Williams. He noticed that unlike the other pig heart recipients who were extremely sick, Slayman looks comparatively quite active and healthy.
Slayman’s history had a kidney transplant before this in the year 2018, but he had to go back on dialysis last year due to the signs of failure. When the dialysis complications arose and required frequent procedures, his doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant which is claimed by Richard himself.
“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,” claimed Slayman who is a systems manager for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
This surgery took almost four hours and had 15 people in the operating room working on it who were ecstatic when they discovered that the kidney had begun making urine is what the doctors exclaimed.