THE PIG KIDNEY BOUGHT HIM NINE MONTHS. IT WAS ENOUGH.
A genetically modified pig kidney kept Tim Andrews off dialysis for 271 days — the longest such stretch yet in a living person. He later received a human kidney, making this the first reported pig-kidney transplant to serve as a bridge to a human one.
THE PIG KIDNEY BOUGHT HIM NINE MONTHS. IT WAS ENOUGH
Sometimes a breakthrough does not have to last forever to change somebody's life. Tim Andrews lived for 271 days without dialysis using a genetically edited pig kidney before later receiving a human donor kidney.
WHAT HAPPENED
Andrews received the experimental pig kidney after years of end-stage kidney disease and dialysis. The organ functioned immediately, and although doctors had to treat an early rejection episode, he remained dialysis-free for 271 days.
After the xenotransplant eventually failed, Andrews received a deceased-donor human kidney that began functioning immediately. Researchers describe the case as the longest dialysis-free survival yet achieved with a pig kidney in a living person, and the first successful transition from a pig kidney to a human kidney transplant.
WHY THIS IS HOPESLOP
The pig kidney did not need to solve transplantation forever. It needed to buy time. For 271 days it did exactly that.
That is a strangely beautiful version of medical progress: an experimental organ serving as a bridge until the thing someone was really waiting for finally arrived.
ORIGINAL SOURCEMass General Brigham / The LancetRead the original report