Tim Andrews, a 66-year-old New Hampshire man, received a groundbreaking pig kidney transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital, marking a significant step forward in the field of xenotransplantation. The surgery offers hope for alleviating the shortage of human organs and provides Andrews with a chance at a healthier life.
A New Hampshire man fought for the chance at a pig kidney transplant , spending months getting into good enough shape to be part of a small pilot study of a highly experimental treatment. 66-year-old Tim Andrews is now free from dialysis, Massachusetts General Hospital announced Friday, and recovering so well from the Jan. 25 transplant that he left the hospital a week later.
This groundbreaking procedure marks a significant step forward in the quest to tell if animal-to-human transplants could help ease the shortage of donated human organs. The first four pig organ transplants — as prior patients, boosted the field — thriving for now 2½ months after a pig kidney transplant at NYU Langone Health in November. Doctors are moving from those one-off experiments to more formal studies. As they monitor Andrews’ recovery, doctors at Mass General Brigham have Food and Drug Administration permission to perform two additional transplants in their pilot study, using gene-edited pig kidneys supplied by biotech eGenesis. And United Therapeutics, another developer of gene-edited pig organs, just won FDA approval for the world’s first clinical trial of xenotransplantation. Initially, six patients will receive pig kidneys — and if they fare well over six months, up to 50 additional patients will receive transplants. \The shortage of donated human organs is a critical issue, with more than 100,000 people on the U.S. transplant list, most who need a kidney, and thousands die waiting. Andrews’ kidneys abruptly failed about two years ago, and the Concord, New Hampshire, grandfather struggled with fatigue and complications from dialysis. He’s on the transplant list but doctors warned it was a long shot. It can take seven years or more for people with Andrews’ blood type to find a matching kidney. Meanwhile, people slowly get sicker on dialysis — five-year survival is about 50% — and Andrews already had had a heart attack. “I have seen my mortality and I was ready to fight,” Andrews said. So he asked Mass General if he could get a pig kidney instead. “I told them. ‘Anything, I’ll do anything. You give me a list of things you want me to do and I’ll do it.’” \Mass General transplant nephrologist Dr. Leonardo Riella said Andrews was weak and struggling with diabetes, including a slow-healing diabetic foot ulcer that hindered walking. He’d have to get more fit to be a candidate. Andrews started physical therapy and returned six months later about 30 pounds lighter and “running down the hallway almost,” Riella recalled. “He was just, you know, a different person,” so they started checking if he’d qualify for the pilot study. Riella noted that the first recipient of a pig kidney transplant, in 2022, had underlying heart disease that killed him. But Riella said intense exams showed Andrews’ “heart was in the best shape possible.” Still, Andrews was a little nervous and sought advice from the only other person who knew what a pig kidney transplant was like — the NYU patient, Towana Loone
Xenotransplantation Pig Kidney Transplant Organ Shortage Medical Breakthrough Massachusetts General Hospital
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