Dozens of doctors and nurses silently lined the hospital hallway in tribute: For a history-making two months, a pig’s kidney worked normally inside the brain-dead man on the gurney rolling past them.
Some short experiments in deceased bodies avoided an immediate immune attack but shed no light on a more common form of rejection that can take a month to form. Last year, University of Maryland surgeons tried to save a dying man with a pig heart –- but he survived only two months as the organ failed for reasons that aren’t completely clear. And the FDA gave Montgomery’s team a list of questions about how pig organs really perform their jobs compared to human ones.
Miller had collapsed and was declared brain-dead, unable to donate his organs because of cancer. After wrestling with the choice, Miller-Duffy donated the Newburgh, New York, man’s body for the pig experiment. She recently got a card from a stranger in California who’s awaiting a kidney transplant, thanking her for helping to move forward desperately needed research.
But soon after, doctors measured a slight decrease in the amount of urine produced. A biopsy confirmed a subtle sign that rejection was beginning –- giving doctors an opportunity to tell if it was treatable. Sure enough, the kidney’s performance bounced back with a change in standard immune-suppressing medicines that patients use today.
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Pig kidney works a record 2 months in donated body, raising hope for animal-human transplantsFor a history-making two months, a pig's kidney worked normally inside a brain-dead man
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Pig kidney works a record 2 months in donated body, raising hope for animal-human transplantsFor a history-making two months, a pig's kidney worked normally inside a brain-dead man.
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Pig kidney works a record 2 months in donated body, raising hope for animal-human transplantsFor a history-making two months, a pig's kidney worked normally inside a brain-dead man
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Pig kidney works a record 2 months in donated body, raising hope for animal-human transplantsFor a history-making two months, a pig's kidney worked normally inside a brain-dead man
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Pig kidney works a record 2 months in donated body, raising hope for animal-human transplantsFor a history-making two months, a pig's kidney worked normally inside a brain-dead man.
Read more »
Pig kidney works a record 2 months in donated body, raising hope for animal-human transplantsFor a history-making two months, a pig's kidney worked normally inside a brain-dead man.
Read more »