- Lisa Pisano faced heart and kidney failure, making her ineligible for traditional transplants, but a pioneering procedure at NYU Langone Health offered her hope.
- Doctors implanted a mechanical heart pump to stabilize Pisano’s failing heart, followed by a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig.
- Pisano’s recovery is progressing well, marking a significant advance in animal-human transplantation.
Doctors transplanted a pig kidney into a New Jersey woman who was near death, in a series of dramatic surgeries that also stabilized her failing heart.
Lisa Pisano’s combination of heart and kidney failure left her too sick to qualify for a traditional transplant and without options. Then doctors at NYU Langone Health came up with a new one-two punch: implanting a mechanical pump to keep his heart beating and a few days later, transplanting a kidney from a genetically modified pig.
Pisano is recovering well, the NYU team announced Wednesday. She is only the second patient to receive a pig kidney – following a historic transplant last month at Massachusetts General Hospital – and the latest in a series of attempts to make animal-to-human transplantation a reality .
MASSACHUSETTS MAN, BENEFICIARY OF FIRST SUCCESSFUL PIG KIDNEY TRANSPLANT, RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL
This week, the 54-year-old grabbed a walker and took her first steps.
Lisa Pisano looks at photos of her dog after her surgeries at NYU Langone Health in New York on April 22, 2024. Doctors transplanted a pig kidney into Pisano, who was near death, as part of a pair of dramatic surgeries that also included a fix for his failing heart. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)
“I was at the end of my rope,” Pisano told the Associated Press. “I just took a chance. And you know, worst case scenario, if it didn’t work for me, it might have worked for someone else and it might have helped the next person.”
Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, recounted the cheers in the operating room when the organ immediately began producing urine.
“It’s been transformative,” Montgomery said of the experiment’s early results.
But “we’re not out of the woods yet,” warned Dr. Nader Moazami, the NYU heart surgeon who implanted the heart pump.
“Thanks to this surgery, I can see my wife smiling again,” Pisano’s husband, Todd, said Wednesday.
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Other transplant experts closely monitor the patient’s progress.
“I have to congratulate them,” said Dr. Tatsuo Kawai of Mass General, who noted that his own pig kidney patient was healthier overall at the start of his surgery than NYU’s. “When heart function is poor, it is very difficult to perform a kidney transplant.”
THE QUEST FOR THE PIG ORGAN
In the United States, more than 100,000 people are on the transplant waiting list, most in need of a kidney, and thousands die while waiting. Hoping to fill the shortage of organ donations, several biotechnology companies are genetically modifying pigs so that their…
