Leaps and bounds are being made in the progress of liver transplants recently, with the lastest being the first successful pig to human transplant.
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We are remarkably similar to pigs, biologically, allowing for some interesting transplants to be considered. Now, the first successful liver transplant between a pig and a human has been done in China. This marks a huge leap forward in shortening the massive waiting lists worldwide.
The surgeons took the organ from a genetically modified seven-month-old Bama miniature pig. It was then kept cool in a medical solution and essentially kept alive. They then transferred it into a clinically dead 50-year-old man. His family okayed the procedure.
The process took a total of nine hours. The surgeons had to stitch the liver into his other organs and blood vessels. However, despite the difficulty, they successfully managed to transplant a pig liver into the human body.
For the next ten days, the pig liver functioned properly in the human body. It produced bile and a regular blood flow.
Pig Organs Could Prove An Invaluable Gift To Liver Waiting Lists
The Chinese scientists are not seeing the pig liver transplant as a permanent solution. It is being viewed as more of a stopgap for people on the waiting list. Around 2,000 people die waiting on the liver transplant list in the US a year. As a result, this procedure could drastically reduce this number.
This transplant comes along with several other huge breakthroughs. Recently, a liver has been shared between two patients, with both of them surviving and living healthy lives. In another case, a woman is living with a pig kidney, alive and well. It appears that pigs are more than just sausages these days. They also seem to be the secret to our failing organs.
Professor Lin Wang, one of the authors of the pig to human liver transplant studies, spoke about the potential of the operation. "We have the opportunity in the future to solve the problem of a patient with severe liver failure," Professor Wang said. "It is our dream to make this achievement. The pig liver could survive together with the original liver of the human being, and maybe it will give it additional support."
