Lisa Pisano, a patient who received a pig kidney transplant at New York City-based NYU Langone Health, had it removed after 47 days due to complications, NBC News reported May 31.
Ms. Pisano's heart and lungs began to fail when surgeons at NYU Langone proceeded to put in a mechanical heart pump as well as the pig kidney, to see if her condition would improve, but the combination of the two presented "unique challenges" for the patient, according to Robert Montgomery, MD, director of NYU Langone's Transplant Institute.
However, due to "significant injury" from insufficient blood flow, the pig kidney was removed, NBC reported. The patient has been stable following the removal, according to NYU Langone. She will now go back on dialysis.
Richard Slayman, a patient at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital, was the first patient to be a recipient of a pig kidney. He died in May, nearly two months after the initial procedure.
The surgical teams at NYU Langone Health have previously performed some of the world's first pig organ to human transplant operations.
Experts at the health system continue to publish extensive research on xenotransplantations, including two new studies published in May in Med and Nature.