Alabama resident became the longest-living person with a pig organ
Alabama resident Tovana Looney, who received a pig kidney transplant, became the longest-living recipient of an animal organ on January 25. This was reported on Saturday by the TV channel Fox 32 Chicago.
Mooney, at age 53, has lived with her new kidney for 61 days. The woman was discharged from a New York hospital 11 days after the surgery, and three weeks later, Looney noticed barely visible signs of rejection.
Dr. Robert Montgomery, who supervised the transplant, said doctors were able to treat the patient after the case, and no signs of malaise or illness have been noticed since.
"I am a superwoman. It's a new outlook on life," Mooney said, laughing as she overtakes family members on walks around town.
Montgomery called the patient's kidney function completely normal. Doctors believe she will be able to leave New York City, where she is temporarily residing for post-operative checkups, and return home in about a month.
It is noted that it is impossible to predict how long Looney's new kidney will last, but if it fails, she will have to undergo dialysis again.
The woman donated her mother's kidney in 1999. Subsequent pregnancy complications caused high blood pressure that damaged her remaining kidney, which failed, which is extremely rare in living donors. Mooney spent eight years on dialysis before doctors concluded that the woman would likely never receive a donor organ because she had developed ultra-high levels of antibodies abnormally tuned to attack another human kidney.
Earlier, on May 13, 2024, Mikhail Bolkov, a researcher at the Institute of Immunology and Physiology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Izvestia that the death of a patient with the world's first transplanted genetically modified pig kidney, Rick Slayman, two months after the operation could have been due to a weakened immune system.
