Dubbed a first-of-its-kind medical surgery, Chinese doctors “successfully” transplant the liver of a gene-edited pig into a 71-year-old patient with massive right lobe liver cancer on Saturday, according to state media.
The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University released a statement, which Global Times published, describing the procedure as “one of the most significant breakthroughs in the medical field” and the first liver xenotransplantation surgery ever performed on a living person.
On May 17, the operation was carried out at the First Affiliated Hospital by the team led by Professor Sun Beicheng.
The patient had no acute or hyperacute rejection responses seven days following surgery, allowing them to move about freely. The coagulation system is functioning normally, and the liver’s function has restored to normal.
The patient’s right hepatic liver tumor was removed during the procedure. It was established that the patient’s demands for liver function could not be satisfied by the remaining portion of the left hepatic lobe.
The patient’s right liver fossa received a liver transplant from a pig that had its genome altered. Bile secretion started right away after the procedure, which went nicely.
