A 53-year-old American woman received a pig kidney transplant. There was no other option

Towana Looney, 53, left the New York hospital two weeks ago, accompanied by nurses and doctors. However, just to be on the safe side, doctors have only now revealed that they transplanted a pig kidney into her in November.

– We want to make sure that this modified kidney can do everything that a regular human kidney can do. We have evidence that it takes over most of the kidney function, but uncertainty always remains. Therefore, constant check-ups will be needed in two, four months, six months and a year – says Robert Montgomery, a doctor.

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The uncertainty is high because so far no one has survived with such a pig organ – either a kidney or a heart – for more than two months. However, Towana Looney had no other choice: she gave one of her kidneys to her mother 25 years ago, and the other one failed when she became pregnant.

So she was unlucky, and very unlucky, because kidney failure occurs in only one percent of people who donated kidneys themselves. Additionally, it turned out that the patient was allergic to all offered kidneys from human donors.

– I was on dialysis for eight years, of which I waited five years for a transplant. During this time, I went through many breakdowns, but I did not give up. When the hospital called, I always went, even if the chance of rejection was slim, says Towana Looney, a xenotransplant recipient.

The kidney that Towana Looney received was previously genetically modified: it has as many as ten modifications that make it easier to adapt to the human body. For now, it is working properly, as evidenced by, among other things, the normal creatinine level.

Interestingly, the patient is constantly monitored outside the hospital by a device she carries with her. Thanks to this, we know its physiological parameters on an ongoing basis: blood pressure, heart rate, ECG, temperature and blood oxygen level. Artificial intelligence analyzes them 24/7, says Prof. Robert Montgomery.

Robert Montgomery is a professor at the Transplantation Institute of New York University, which has already become famous for its animal transplants, just like doctors from a hospital in Baltimore. It was there that two years ago they transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a patient. The need for such transplants is great because there is a shortage of organs from human donors.

– If you don't try, you won't know. If we try, we will become better, we will gain knowledge on how to improve it – says Towana Looney.

In Poland, attempts to transplant a pig heart were made by Professor Zbigniew Religa 30 years ago.