Przejdź do treściResearchers have reported a patient with end-stage kidney disease who received a gene-edited pig kidney and remained independent of dialysis for 271 days. After months of initially stable function, microvascular injury developed and the xenograft eventually failed and was removed. Eighty-two days later the patient received a human kidney, which functioned immediately; during 231 days of follow-up, the investigators found no evidence that the pig kidney had caused clinically significant sensitisation that would hinder the human transplant. The case suggests that a gene-edited pig kidney might one day serve as a temporary bridge for selected patients facing a long wait for a human organ. An orthopaedic surgeon following advances in transplantation should distinguish a case report from established care: this was the first recipient in a planned three-patient study under an FDA expanded-access programme, not an established treatment, so durability, safety and rejection mechanisms still need to be studied in more people.
Source: Riella LV, Borges TJ, Rosales IA, et al. Porcine kidney xenotransplantation as a bridge to allotransplantation: a first-in-human study. The Lancet. First published online 3 September 2026. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)01295-X; checked 16 September 2026; access: full abstract and bibliographic record via PubMed and the publisher link; the publisher’s full text was not available in the access used.
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Content prepared by: Tomasz Poboży - orthopaedic surgeon.