A pork liver was transplanted for the first time to a human patient, Chinese researchers who performed this medical performance announced on Wednesday.
Doctors in the Photo operating room: Archive
The new performance, widely described in Nature magazine by the team of researchers at the University of Xi’an, represents for the moment only one experiment, without having an immediate medical applicability: the beneficiary was a person in brain death.
The donor was a miniature pig, genetically modified to increase the chances of success of the transplant. The operation was performed on March 10, 2024.
The transplanted liver worked for 10 days. Then, the Chinese researchers put an end to the experiment, at the request of the beneficiary’s family, according to Agerpres.
It should be mentioned, however, that the patient still had his original liver: in this case it was a graft “auxiliary ”. The idea is to propose to patients a transitional organ before doctors find a healthy liver from a human donor.
The transplanted liver “It really worked well ” and “He synthesized the ball without problems ”such as albumin, said in a Lin Wang press conference, a study co-author.
According to experts who did not participate in the study, it represents a great step forward, but should not be considered a proof that a pig liver could truly replace a human organ.
These are results “Of value and impressive”, but “cannot replace the transplant of a liver from a human donor – in any case not in the short term”, Professor Peter Friend, a specialist in transplants at Oxford University, warned.
“It is a useful study to show the compatibility of these genetically modified genetically with a human patient.”he summarized.
In any case, the China experiment confirmed that the pig has the potential to be the most suitable animal for the development of organs intended for human transplant.
Several medical experiments, carried out in recent years in the United States, have already allowed kidney and pork hearts.
