{"id":1494,"date":"2025-05-01T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/?p=1494"},"modified":"2025-05-06T13:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T13:45:08","slug":"nyu-langone-patient-lives-with-pig-kidney-for-130-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/nyu-langone-patient-lives-with-pig-kidney-for-130-days\/","title":{"rendered":"NYU Langone patient lives with pig kidney for 130 days"},"content":{"rendered":"

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An NYU Langone Health patient lived with a pig kidney for 130 days before she experienced an organ rejection. On April 4, the patient underwent surgery at the hospital center to remove the pig kidney, ending the longest stretch that a person has ever survived with a genetically engineered animal organ.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 53-year-old patient Towana Looney became the third person to ever get a pig kidney transplant after Robert Montgomery, the director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, performed the procedure on Nov. 25. Looney had undergone unsuccessful dialysis treatment for eight years and her body did not respond to a human kidney transplant, leading NYU Langone surgeons to use <\/span>xenotransplantation<\/span><\/a> \u2014 performing transplants from one species to another.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Montgomery said that after Looney lowered her dosage of immunosuppression medication to help treat an unrelated infection, her immune system began attacking the pig kidney in her body. However, he said that the direct cause of the transplant rejection is still being \u201cactively investigated.\u201d Five days after her surgery, Looney was released from the hospital and returned to her home state, Alabama.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision was made by Ms. Looney and her doctors that the safest intervention would be to remove the kidney and return to dialysis rather than giving additional immunosuppression,\u201d Montgomery wrote in a statement. \u201cThis preserves future possibilities for transplantation for her as knowledge and innovations progress.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a limited number of patients who have undergone a transplant surgery with a genetically engineered animal organ. Recently, <\/span>four patients<\/span><\/a> \u2014 two with genetically modified pig kidneys and two with pig hearts \u2014 have died from complications. In January, 66-year-old Tim Andrews, who was diagnosed with end-stage kidney disease, <\/span>received a genetically modified pig kidney from Massachusetts General Hospital<\/span><\/a> and has since recovered smoothly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over 105,000 people<\/span><\/a> in the United States are on the waitlist for an organ, with over 90,000 waiting for a kidney. On average, <\/span>17 people die every day<\/span><\/a> waiting for a transplant. Scientists are testing xenotransplantation to assess its validity as a long-term option for those who are unable to receive a human organ transplant because of the long wait times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThough the outcome is not what anyone wanted, I know a lot was learned from my 130 days with a pig kidney \u2014 and that this can help and inspire many others in their journey to overcome kidney disease,\u201d Looney said in a statement. \u201cI remain thankful to all of the doctors and researchers at NYU Langone for all they are doing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact Isabella D\u2019Erasmo at iderasmo@nyunews.com.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This story NYU Langone patient lives with pig kidney for 130 days<\/a> appeared first on Washington Square News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An NYU Langone Health patient lived with a pig kidney for 130 days before she…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1494"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1497,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494\/revisions\/1497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}