Mass. patient who received pig kidney leaves hospital, continues recovery at home

Richard Slayman, the first living person in the world to receive a kidney transplant from a pig, has been discharged from Massachusetts General Hospital and is continuing his recovery at home.

Slayman, 62, walked out of the hospital Wednesday afternoon in good spirits, according to his medical team.

In a statement provided by Mass General, Slayman thanked well-wishers and asked for privacy as he continues to heal.

“This moment — leaving the hospital today with one of the cleanest bills of health I’ve had in a long time — is one I wished would come for many years,” Slayman said. “Now, it’s a reality and one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Slayman, a state transportation department manager from Weymouth, has lived with kidney disease for many years. On March 16, doctors transplanted a genetically modified kidney from a pig into his body, the first such operation in the world.

“I never thought in my lifetime I'd see this happen,” Dr. Joren Madsen, director of Mass General’s transplant center, told WBUR. “We're all ecstatic about the fact that he's done so well and that he'll be going home with a pig kidney working perfectly.”

Scientists made 69 edits to the kidney to add human genes, remove pig genes that could harm a human and prevent the transmission of pig viruses.

The surgery is considered a significant advance in xenotransplantation, in which an organ from an animal is transplanted into a human. Many experts believe pig organs could help alleviate the shortage of human donor organs for patients who need transplants to survive.

Kidney specialists hope the procedure will usher in a new era for patients with severe kidney disease by eventually eliminating the need for long-term dialysis treatment.

Slayman was given drugs to prevent his body from rejecting the pig organ. But Madsen said there was still an unexpected complication. The patient developed a fever, pain and swelling, indicating that his body’s T cells — part of the immune system — cells were rejecting the transplanted organ.

Doctors were able to address the problem by giving Slayman additional anti-rejection medications, Madsen said.

“We recognized it early and treated it quickly, and it's resolved,” he said. “It caused him a few more days in the hospital, but we've got control of it.”

Slayman will return to the hospital for weekly appointments as doctors continue to track his progress closely.

His medical team will work with experts across the country to develop a clinical trial to formally study pig organ transplants in humans, Madsen said.

Doctors from Mass General are also studying transplantation of pig hearts, lungs and livers.

This type of research faces opposition from people who object to animals being raised and killed to potentially benefit humans, but Madsen defended the work.

“We are slaughtering hundreds of thousands of pigs a day anyway to provide food for human beings,” he said. “We feel that it is a moral imperative to try to use animal experiments and animal organs to save human lives.”