Table of Contents
Towana Rooney knew that the first four people who received the organs from pigs had died within two months. However, Gazden in Alabama was still a game I tried.
After dialysis couldn't find a donor game for eight or five years, she was tired of her life and was ready to try something new, even if it was dangerous.
JAYME LOCKE, a doctor in Alabama, talked to her about the experimental transplant procedure and began to ask if she was interested. “I didn't let her get it from her mouth, and I said,” Yes Maham. ” 53 -year -old Rooney said in a video interview recorded by NYU Languone Health. The doctor asked why, despite the odds. “No.1, to help so many people,” Rooney remembers that he responded.
“We had been in contact for months. Same conversation. Same answer. Same conversation. Same answer.”
Rooney eventually undergone surgery on November 25 in NYU Rangone in New York, leaving the hospital 10 days later and left several blocks.
She returns to the hospital every day to check her health, is monitored by a wearable sensor that tracks blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen, temperature, and other means so that brewing can be captured before brewing causes actual trouble. 。
The ultimate goal of her transplant surgeon is to provide both alternatives using pig organs. 5,600 Americans die Every year, we are waiting for human organs to be available. In addition, it can benefit from the replacement organs, but it is not a few million people who do not reach the list at all, but for tens of thousands of people.
“This can completely change what it means in terms of the mathematical mathematics of the end organ's failure and the possibility that it is transplanted,” Robert, a Roveni surgeon who has been a heart transplant.・ Dr. Montgomery said. He said he had a 50-50 opportunity to receive his new organs for a long time. “Heterogeneous transplant is to eliminate the gambling.”
Opportunities and challenges
Four other patients with pig organs (two heart and two kidney) spent a “honeymoon” period shortly after transplantation, and said in an interview with a video tape conducted by the hospital. All four died in less than two months.
But Rooney, two mothers and two grandmothers, believes she has the best opportunity for long -term survival because she is the most healthy among them. Montgomery is a professor and chairman of the NYU Languone Agalid and the Director of the Institute of Transplant.
“Many problems are related to patient illness,” he said on the video. It is not clear yet that someone can live with pig organs. He hopes that Rooney will show that animal organs can buy much more time than a few months. “I'm very excited about it here because I have the opportunity to go further over the last two months.”
Doctors do not know if the pig kidney can execute all the functions of the human kidney, as no one in the other patient has survived for a long time. Pig kidney can clearly eliminate urine like human -friendly objects and eliminate waste, but adjusts blood pressure, liquid level, electrolytes, and calcium metabolism, produces and reacts hormones. You need a longer transplant to prove whether you can.
“We need to see if the pig kidney cannot do the human kidneys in the first four, six months, or year,” said Mongomery.
What is a heterogeneous transplant?
Heterogeneous transplantation is to use animal organs to transplant to humans. Some people have ethical concerns, but ethics are aware that humans eat and eat animals on a daily basis. Animal welfare advocates have estimated it 124 million pigs are killed I eat every year in the United States alone.
Pigs are used for transplanting because the anatomy and size are relatively similar to humans. Each pig used for transplantation has been raised, especially for this purpose, and has increased the possibility that the organs will be accepted by the human body.
According to Montgomery, three genes have been eliminated to avoid immediate immunity rejection after transplantation. The fourth gene was “knocked out” to prevent growing after the pig kidney was transplanted. Montgomery said that the kidneys of full -grown pigs are larger than the kidney of the human, so that adolescent pigs are used and growth hormone receptors are removed to prevent them from growing after transplantation.
In addition to the pigs, the blood clots were transplanted, and blood clots were prevented, and the human immune system managed a new organs to prevent inflammation against transplantation.
I want another ending
Rooney donated one kidney to his mother in 1999 when his mother had kidney disease. Later, in 2006, she developed a pre -lamp of the child during pregnancy and injured the remaining kidney. By 2016, her kidneys were severely damaged and dialysis.
She got an organ transplant list five years ago. However, her body would have refused the human organs she had tried to transplant due to her natural immunity system and her blood transfusion during pregnancy.
“She basically doesn't match other people on the earth,” said Montgomery in a video interview. “She was starting to run out of options. She was in trouble in the future that was not far away.”
Currently, XenotransPlantation is performed only as a limited procedure to save people like Rooney, who has no other options.
The hospital did not disclose Rooney's care, but paid most of it. Usually, insurance does not cover the cost of experimental treatment.
Montgomery said that some clinical trials for about 8 to 10 patients would be started in his facility in 2025. Later, more phase 3 exams are conducted by more institutions.
“About seven years later, we should be in a position to do this as a daily one,” he said.
In an interview at a hospital, Rooney said that he was eager to volunteer, rather than waiting for dying for dialysis for years.
“I want to know what I tried. I made a difference. I helped me and tried to help people,” she said. “If you don't try it, how do you know? How do we learn? How do we get better? How we will improve it Is it?
Karen Weintraub can be accessed on kweintraub@usatoday.com.
