70s Chinese Cancer Patient Receives 'Dwaeji Gan' Transplant... "No Rejection Response"

First Pig Liver Transplant in Patient Not in Brain Death State

A surgery transplanting a genetically modified pig liver into a liver cancer patient in his 70s was performed in China. This is the first case of transplanting a pig liver into a living patient who is not brain dead.

On the 29th, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that medical staff at Anhui Medical University Hospital transplanted a 514g genetically edited pig liver into a 71-year-old male liver cancer patient on the 17th. The patient was able to walk freely on the 24th, one week after the surgery, and no severe rejection reaction was observed. It is also known that the coagulation system was not damaged and liver function returned to normal.

The Chinese Organ Transplant Ethics Committee approved the transplant surgery because the patient had a large tumor in the right lobe of the liver and no other treatment options were available. Medical staff at Anhui Medical University Hospital told the People's Daily, "Currently, the transplanted pig liver secretes about 200㎖ of bile daily," adding, "This means that blood is circulating completely normally within the arteries and veins of the transplanted pig liver."

The medical team also expressed hope that the success of this pig liver transplant surgery "demonstrates that Chinese scientists' xenogeneic liver transplant technology has reached a world-leading level and will be the most important breakthrough in the medical field."

Meanwhile, medical staff at the Chinese Air Force Medical University transplanted a genetically modified pig liver into a brain-dead patient in March. In the same month, a patient with end-stage kidney disease at Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States received a genetically modified pig kidney transplant. However, that patient suddenly passed away this month.