Surgeons in China have for the first time transplanted a section of liver extracted from a genetically modified pig into a human cancer patient ….
The surgeons, who described the procedure in a paper in The Journal of Hepatology, grafted the portion of pig liver onto the left lobe of a 71-year-old patient’s liver after removing the larger right lobe, where a tumor the size of a grapefruit had grown. … The patient’s body did not reject the organ graft, which enabled the remaining left lobe of the patient’s own liver to regenerate and grow, the scientists said.
The porcine liver lobe was removed 38 days after the transplant, when complications developed …. The patient, who had advanced disease, died a little over five and a half months later.
While American surgeons have in recent years transplanted hearts and kidneys from genetically modified pigs into a small number of living patients, they have shied away from liver xenotransplantation, which poses particularly complex challenges.
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