Doctors rejoice

Patient with pig kidney discharged from hospital

The procedure on the 62-year-old kidney patient

(Bild: AFP)

It is a worldwide sensation: almost three weeks after the operation, the first patient with a transplanted pig kidney was able to leave hospital on Wednesday.

"I have longed for this moment for many years, to be able to leave the hospital with one of the best health certificates I have had for a long time," said 62-year-old Rick Slayman, according to the doctors. "Now it has become a reality."

This day not only meant a new beginning for him, but also for many other people who were waiting for a kidney transplant. The man, who suffers from a life-threatening kidney disease, had the genetically modified organ transplanted on March 16, according to the hospital.

The 62-year-old is recovering well and will now continue his recovery at home with his family, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday (local time).

Pigs are well suited as donors
Xenotransplantation has been researched for a long time. Pigs are particularly suitable as donors because their metabolism is similar to that of humans. In order to use such organs, the genetic material of the donor animals must be altered, among other things. Otherwise there would be an immediate rejection reaction when transferred to humans.

Concerns about rejection
The 62-year-old also showed signs of rejection on the eighth day after the operation, wrote the New York Times, citing one of the doctors. The immune reaction was contained with medication. "It was a rollercoaster ride in the first week," the doctor admitted. However, the man reacted to the treatment in the same way as patients who had received organs from human donors.

In recent years, two seriously ill patients had pig hearts implanted as replacement organs at the University Hospital in Baltimore in the US state of Maryland. Both died weeks after the operation.