“American Towana Looney has been living with a transplanted pig kidney for a record two months.”, — write: www.ukrinform.ua
The woman herself donated a kidney to her mother in 1999, but a few years later, after complications during pregnancy, she developed kidney failure.
She was on the list of people waiting for an organ transplant for almost eight years.
A 53-year-old woman from Alabama underwent an experimental organ transplant last November.
Last Saturday, she passed the 61-day mark after her pig kidney transplant. According to Tovana, she feels like a “superwoman” after a successful transplant.
Doctors consider the functioning of Looney’s new kidney to be “absolutely normal”.
She was released from the hospital 11 days after the operation, but is still staying in New York for a month so doctors can monitor her before she goes home.
So far, only four other Americans have been transplanted with genetically modified pig organs, and none of them lived more than two months.
Read also: Lviv doctors simultaneously transplanted a heart and kidney one person Genetically modified pig organs could help solve the acute shortage of organs available for transplant.
In Britain, there are about 7,500 people on the transplant waiting list. persons Last year, more than 415 people died while waiting for an organ transplant.
In the USA, more than 100,000 people are waiting for organ transplantation, most of them need a new kidney.
As Ukrinform reported, in 2022, American doctors performed the first operation to transplant the heart of a genetically modified pig into a man with a life-threatening heart disease.
Photo: NYU Langone Health