Doctors in China say they transplanted a genetically modified pig liver into a 71-year-old man who lived 171 days after the procedure, and 38 of those days were with the pig organ in place – a first to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Scientists have had early success transplanting genetically modified pig kidneys and hearts into humans, and pig livers have been transplanted into people who were brain-dead. But experts in the field of xenotransplantation – using animal organs in people – have had some concerns about whether the liver would be a good candidate for such a procedure.
“Everyone always says, ‘oh, liver is too complicated to transplant, compared to the heart or kidney,’ but after this, in the future, I think people will think differently. I think liver is good if we can get enough human genes in the pig,” said Dr. Beicheng Sun, president of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University and a co-author of the new study.
Unlike hearts and kidneys that have more narrow functions, the liver is more complicated to replace with a pig organ because it’s large and has a dual blood supply and multiple functions. The liver filters blood, removes toxins and waste, processes nutrients, detoxifies harmful substances like alcohol and drugs, produces bile to help with digestion, produces proteins that help blood clot and plays an important role in regulating blood sugar.
Last year, doctors at Penn Medicine did the world’s first known successful external liver perfusion using a gene-edited pig organ. Blood from a brain-dead patient circulated through a pig liver outside the person’s body. In that case, the pig liver showed no signs of inflammation in the 72 hours it was tested, and the patient’s body remained stable.
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