Lisa Pisano, the woman who received the world's first combined heart pump and pig kidney transplant, died Sunday at age 54, CBS News reported.
Pisano is the grandmother who underwent surgery to transplant a mechanical heart pump and a gene-edited pig kidney at New York University's Langone Transplant Institute. according to Pisano told CBS News that he was being treated for heart and kidney failure, conditions that made a transplant into a human body impossible.
A woman who received a pig kidney transplant died in April. https://t.co/WbB6WSdoPt
— KSNB Local 4 (@KSNBLocal4) July 10, 2024
According to CBS News, the surgery included the placement of a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) on April 4, followed by a pig kidney transplant on April 12. However, complications arose and the pig's kidney was blocked by blood flow, leading to its removal 47 days later. Despite the setback, Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the New York University Langone Transplant Institute, praised Pisano's contributions to medicine. (Related article: Second pig heart transplant patient dies)
“Her legacy as a pioneer lives on and her courage and good character will be forever remembered,” Montgomery said in a statement, CBS News reported.
Pisano, who has end-stage kidney disease and undergoes regular dialysis, said in an interview that the procedure gave him a chance to return to some degree of normalcy.
“I was at my limit,” Pisano told CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. John Rapock in an April interview. “I couldn't walk up stairs, I couldn't drive, I couldn't play with my grandkids. So when this opportunity came up, I decided to grab it.”
ALBERETO, ITALY – MAY 22: Pigs that survived flooding lie in a pigsty on a farm in Albereto, Italy, on May 22, 2023. Heavy rains wreak havoc in the northern Italian region of Emilia Romagna, causing severe flooding and landslides, killing 15 people and forcing 40,000 to evacuate their homes. (Photo by Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images)
The United States is facing a severe organ shortage, with more than 104,000 people on the transplant waiting list, more than 80 percent of whom need a kidney. Pisano's case marks the second case of a gene-edited pig kidney transplant into a living human, following the first at Massachusetts General Hospital, the outlet noted.
The genetically modified pig kidneys were designed to avoid the immediate rejection by the human body, a frequent problem with xenotransplants. The modifications include knocking out the gene responsible for producing alpha-gal sugar, which normally triggers an immediate immune response, CBS News reported.
Montgomery stressed that Pisano's courage in participating in these experimental procedures gives hope for the future of organ transplantation.
“Thanks to Lisa, we're one step closer to a future where no one has to die in order for someone else to live,” Montgomery said, according to CBS News.
