Surgeons in Boston successfully transplanted the kidney of a genetically modified pig into a 66-year-old man with kidney failure last month, Massachusetts General Hospital announced on Friday.
It was the fourth pig kidney transplant in the United States, and the first of three that will be done at Mass General as part of a new clinical trial sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration. Two of the previous patients died shortly after the procedure, including one who was critically ill before the transplant.
More than 100,000 people in the country are on waiting lists for transplant organs, mostly kidneys, but there is an acute shortage of human donor organs. Many people will die while waiting.
To help alleviate the shortage, several biotech companies are editing the genes of pigs so that their organs will not be easily rejected by the human body.
The new clinical trial, which is using organs produced by the biotech company eGenesis, is one of two studies of genetically engineered animal organs that got a green light from regulators earlier this week. The other, sponsored by United Therapeutics Corporation, will begin later this year with six patients, but that number could eventually rise to 50.
The latest transplant recipient, Tim Andrews of Concord, N.H., had his surgery in late January and was well enough to be discharged a week later.
“When I got out of the recovery room and went to the intensive care unit, I actually tap-danced between the table and my bed,” Mr. Andrews said in an interview on Thursday. “I’m so happy, it’s unbelievable.”
Mr. Andrews had been on kidney dialysis for more than two years, enduring hourslong treatments every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. They left him fatigued and nauseous most of the time, and he wasn’t able to work or do much around the house.
He had a heart attack shortly after starting dialysis, and last August, when he started discussing the possibility of the transplant with Mass General doctors, he was using a wheelchair. They told him he had to get in better shape for the surgery, so he started doing physical therapy and walking.
Like Towana Looney, a woman from Alabama who received a pig’s kidney at NYU Langone Health in November, Mr. Andrews said that after the surgery he felt better than he had in years.
“It’s like a new engine — suddenly I had an energy machine pouring into me,” he said. Ms. Looney, who has remained in New York City for follow-up care, is doing well and plans to return home later this month, which will be three months after her operation.
Even if the pig organs are proved to be safe and effective, it’s unclear what they would cost and whether they would be covered by insurance. Most patients experiencing kidney failure are unable to work and are covered by the government health plan Medicare.
The kidney Mr. Andrews received came from a pig that had undergone 69 gene edits, including 59 to inactivate porcine retroviruses in an effort to reduce the risk of infection to humans.
Two patients who had transplants involving pig kidneys last year died shortly after the procedures, including Lisa Pisano of New Jersey, who had her surgery in New York and whose kidney was engineered by United Therapeutics Corporation, and Richard Slayman of Massachusetts, who received an eGenesis kidney at Mass General.
But Dr. Tatsuo Kawai, the lead surgeon involved in the operations at Mass General, said that doctors were constantly learning.
The goal is “to make genetically edited pig organs a viable, long-term solution for patients,” Dr. Kawai said in a statement. “Although we have a long way to go to make that a reality, this transplant is an important next step.”
