Pig kidney functioned in US patient for record 271 days, doctors say

Doctors at Mass General Brigham hospital in the US say a kidney transplanted from a pig functioned inside a patient's body for 271 days, the longest such case on record.

Patient Tim Andrews said the procedure gave him "hope" and allowed him to avoid months of hospital visits for blood filtering on a dialysis machine.

A bridge to a human organ

The medical team says the case demonstrates that pig organs can serve as a "bridge" while patients wait for a human transplant to become available. Although the pig kidney eventually failed and had to be removed, Andrews only needed a short period of dialysis before a human donor organ was found.

Xenotransplantation, the use of organs from other species, is being explored because of severe shortages of transplant organs. In the US, roughly 100,000 people are currently waiting for a kidney, while only about 25,000 transplants are performed each year. In the UK, more than 7,000 people are on the kidney transplant waiting list.

Andrews had been told it could take up to seven years to reach the top of the transplant list, while people on dialysis survive an average of only five years. He said the shortage of time was a source of depression, but described the pig kidney option as giving him hope and "the light at the end of the tunnel" — a chance to be free of the dialysis machine and live his life.