Doctors in China have transplanted a pig’s liver in a human being in what is being described as a ‘medical breakthrough’.
The liver, from a miniature pig, had six edited genes. It was transplanted into a brain-dead adult person at the Fourth Military Medical University in the Chinese city of Xi’an on March 10, 2024.
Doctors presented their findings from the experiment in a study (Gene-modified pig-to-human liver xenotransplantation) published in the journal Nature.
The trial was terminated after 10 days at the request of the patient’s family, news agency AFP reported. The name, gender and other details of the patient have not been revealed.
However, the doctors stressed that the pig liver did not completely replace the patient’s original liver. According to the doctors, the transplant (termed ‘auxiliary’) can help serve as a ‘bridge organ’ to support people who are waiting for a human donor.
The pig liver secreted bile and the protein albumin but did so in much smaller quantities than a human liver. Doctors monitored its blood flow, bile production, immune response and other key functions over the 10 days, reported AFP.
“Future studies will need to choose between a bridge graft or permanent placement of xenotransplantation. Although the xenograft could secrete bile and produce porcine albumin in this study, it is unlikely that the production of bile and porcine albumin was enough to support the human body for a long period,” they wrote.
Liver transplants have proved to be difficult as the liver, unlike kidneys or the heart, performs several different functions. It produces bile that breaks fats, filters the blood and breaks down drugs and alcohol.
Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania had attached a pig liver to a brain-dead patient last year. However, the organ had remained outside the body. Two recipients of pig hearts in the US have died. But Towana Looney of Alabama, who received a pig kidney transplant on November 25, 2024, is back home in Alabama, noted AFP.
