World's 1st transplants of 3 pig organs into one human

Surgeons in China have performed the world’s first combined transplant of a whole pig liver and both kidneys into a brain-dead human recipient, achieving over six days of organ function without hyperacute rejection.

The procedure, led by a team at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, located in south China, used a six-gene-edited pig with a body size and physiological characteristics highly similar to those of humans as the donor, according to the university’s announcement, according to a post on the hospital’s official WeChat account.

To combat the fundamental scarcity of organs globally, xenotransplantation, or the transfer of animal organs into humans, leveraging gene-edited pigs, has arisen as the most revolutionary solution.

The team’s editing strategy, three knockouts and three insertions, is designed to reduce immune responses and improve compatibility, noted the study published in the journal MED. They transplanted the liver and both kidneys in their natural positions through a single incision. The total cold ischemia time, which is the duration the organ is kept chilled outside the body, was controlled at 281 minutes from donor procurement to reperfusion. 

The recipient, a 53-year-old brain-dead man, was monitored for about 106 hours in the ethically accepted clinical study conducted after his organs had been donated for clinical use.