PIG livers and kidneys may be given to future transplant patients instead of human organs, according to a top British surgeon.
Professor Peter Morris, head of the Nuffield Department of Surgery at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, said yesterday that the rising demand for transplants and the limited number of donors meant surgeons would probably be forced to turn to animal organs.
But he said general use of such organs was probably about 10 to 20 years away because scientists still had to overcome the problem of rejection by the human body.
Speaking on the first full day of the biggest surgical conference to be held in Hong Kong, Professor Morris said the human body would regard transplanted animal organs as foreign matter to be attacked and destroyed by antibodies ''within minutes''.
Scientists had to find a way to block this response, he said. They had already taken the first step towards doing so by creating the world's first transgenic pig in Oxford several months ago.
This pig, which had been bred with some human genes, could express a human product which interfered with the body's defensive antibodies.
''But I think the use of animal organs is still a long way off,'' he said.