New Hampshire man is 2nd person known to be living with a pig kidney A New Hampshire man fought for the chance at a pig kidney transplant, spending months getting into good enough shape to be part of a small pilot study of a highly experimental treatment.
NYU transplant surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery said patients like those in Mass General’s pilot study could be “the sweet spot” for early xenotransplants — not yet too sick from years of dialysis but unlikely to survive long enough for a human transplant.
“This is uncharted territory,” said Mass General’s Dr. Tatsuo Kawai, who led both Andrews’ surgery and the world’s first pig kidney transplant last year.
As they monitor Andrews’ recovery, doctors at Mass General Brigham have Food and Drug Administration permission to perform two additional transplants in their pilot study, using gene-edited pig kidneys supplied by biotech eGenesis.
Still, Andrews was a little nervous and sought advice from the only other person who knew what a pig kidney transplant was like — the NYU patient, Towana Looney.
