Use of Pig Liver in Blood Filtration Offers New Hope for Patient Treatment
Surgeons externally attached a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and observed it successfully filter blood, a step toward using the technique in patients with liver failure.
The University of Pennsylvania announced the novel experiment on Thursday, which takes a different approach to animal-to-human organ transplants. In this case, the pig liver was used outside the donated body rather than inside, forming a “bridge” to support failing livers by performing the organ’s blood-cleansing work externally, similar to dialysis for failing kidneys.
For decades, animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplants, have failed because people’s immune systems reject foreign tissues. Scientists are now trying again with pigs whose organs have been genetically modified to resemble those of humans.
In recent years, kidneys from genetically modified pigs have been temporarily transplanted into brain-dead donors to see how well they work, and two men received heart transplants from pigs, both of whom died within months.
The US Food and Drug Administration is considering allowing a small number of Americans in need of a new organ to participate in rigorous studies of pig hearts or kidneys.
Some researchers also intend to use pig livers. A liver is more complex than kidneys and hearts; it filters blood, removes waste, and produces substances required for other bodily functions. Approximately 10,000 people are currently on the US waiting list for a liver transplant.
In the Penn study, researchers attached a pig liver, genetically modified by eGenesis, to an OrganOx device that typically helps preserve donated human livers before transplant.
The family of the deceased, whose organs were unsuitable for donation, donated the body for research. Machines kept the body’s blood flowing.
The Promising Results
The experiment, which took place last month, filtered blood through a pig liver device for 72 hours. In a statement, the Penn team stated that the donor’s body remained stable and that the pig liver showed no signs of damage.
There is a lot of work being done to develop liver dialysis-like machines, and experiments with pig livers were tried years ago – before today’s more advanced genetic techniques, according to Dr. Parsia Vagefi of UT Southwestern Medical Center, who was not involved in the new experiment but is closely monitoring xenotransplantation research.
“I applaud them for pushing this forward,” Vagefi said, calling this combination pig-device approach an intriguing step in efforts toward better care for liver failure.
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