New Jersey, United States

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A pig kidney was transplanted by doctors in a New Jersey woman who was on her deathbed as part of a dramatic combination of surgeries which also included giving her a mechanical heart pump to stabilise her failing heart.

The combination of kidney and heart failure had made the woman, identified as Lisa Pisano, too sick to qualify for a traditional transplant. A novel one-two-punch method was devised by the doctors at NYU Langone Health.

According to this method, the doctors implanted a mechanical pump to keep her heart beating and after days, transplanted a kidney in the woman from a genetically modified pig. 

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Also Read: Cross-border heart transplant: Indian donor saves Pakistani teenager's life

The NYU team on Wednesday (April 24) said that Pisano is recovering well and that she is the second patient to ever receive a pig kidney after a historic transplant was completed successfully at the Massachusetts General Hospital last month. 

On April 4, Pisano received the heart pump and then she got a gene-edited pig kidney along with the pig’s thymus gland on April 12. 

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NYU Langone Health said that her case is the first to be reported where a person has received an organ transplant along with a mechanical heart pump. 

Woman recovers after historic surgery, takes first steps 

The 54-year-old has been recovering fast from the surgery and recently took her first few steps. 

Speaking to The Associated Press, Pisano said, “I was at the end of my rope. I just took a chance. And you know, worst case scenario, if it didn’t work for me, it might have worked for someone else and it could have helped the next person.”

The director of NYU Langone Transplant Institute, Dr Robert Montgomery remembered the cheers he heard in the operating room just after the organ started making urine immediately.

Watch: Xenotransplantation: Pig kidney transplanted into human

Speaking about the early results of the surgery, Montgomery said, “It’s been transformative." However, “we’re not off the hook yet,” Dr Nader Moazami said. He is the NYU cardiac surgeon who carried out the heart pump's implantation.

Speaking about the woman's health condition prior to the surgery, Montgomery said Pisano “was getting sicker and sicker, and really, her life expectancy could be measured in days or weeks". He added that her situation was a "medical Catch-22".

“She had both heart and kidney failure but was not a candidate for a combined heart and kidney transplant because of her other health conditions,” Montgomery stated.

Meanwhile, transplant experts have kept a close watch on how the patient is performing. 

In the United States, more than 100,000 people are on the waiting list for a kidney. 

(With inputs from agencies)