World first: living cancer patient in China receives pig’s liver transplant

Seven days after the operation, Chinese researchers say the 71-year-old’s organ function has returned to normal and he is walking freely

The milestone is China’s second in recent months, with a US team also recording a breakthrough as scientists race to make gene-edited organs from pigs a medical reality

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Chinese doctors have achieved a milestone in animal-to-human organ transplant research. Photo: First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University

Published: 9:00am, 29 May 2024Updated: 10:06am, 29 May 2024

In a world first, Chinese doctors said they transplanted a gene-edited pig’s liver into a living patient, the latest milestone in a record-setting year for researchers into animal-to-human transplants, known as xenotransplantation.

In a post on its WeChat account on Friday, seven days after the operation, Anhui Medical University’s First Affiliated Hospital said a 71-year-old man with severe liver cancer received the organ on May 17.

As of May 24, “the patient was able to walk freely, no hyper-acute or acute rejection reactions were found, the coagulation system was not impaired, and liver function had returned to normal”, the university said.

The achievement follows another breakthrough in March, by a Chinese team from Air Force Medical University that transplanted the first gene-edited pig’s liver into a patient who had suffered brain death.

Also in March, a patient in the United States became the first in the world to receive a genetically modified pig’s kidney transplant, a procedure previously performed only on clinically dead patients.

The patient, who had been suffering end-stage kidney failure, died suddenly earlier this month. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where the procedure was carried out, said there was “no indication” that his death was due to the transplant.

A second US patient, who received a gene-edited pig’s kidney in April, is still alive and “brings hope for the development of xenotransplantation from pigs to humans”, Anhui Medical University said.

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