October 10, 2025
3 min read
Pig Liver Surgery Moves Us Closer to Transplants from Other Species
Surgeons in China transplanted part of pig liver into a patient with an incurable cancerous tumor, and it functioned for more than a month
In another procedure, a team led by Qin Weijun, a doctor at Xijing Hospital of the Air Force Medical University, performs a surgery to transplant a genetically modified pig kidney into a brain-dead recipient at the hospital in Xi’an, China on March 25, 2024.
Xijing Hospital of the Air Force Medical University/Handout via Xinhua/Alamy
Chinese scientists have performed what is thought to be the first transplant of a genetically modified pig liver segment into a person with cancer. Surgeons reported that the transplanted section of the pig organ supported the patient’s metabolic functions properly for 38 days, at which point it had to be removed because of complications. The patient lived another 133 days and died from gastrointestinal bleeding. The results were published on October 8 in the Journal of Hepatology.
Transplanting organs from other animals into humans—known as xenotransplantation—has made notable strides in recent years. The pig liver transplant “demonstrates that xenogeneic organs can not only survive short term but also perform physiological functions in the complex environment of a living body,” says Beicheng Sun, president of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University in China, who conducted the study with his colleagues This “creates a bridge to give a patient more time” to recover or to receive a donor organ in case their liver must be completely replaced.
The patient was at risk of liver rupture because of a tumor on the organ’s right side. His remaining left lobe was insufficient to sustain life, according to the doctors that treated him. Sun and his team implanted a section of the pig liver as an “auxiliary” graft. This way, part of the man’s…
Read the full article here