In the US, more than 100,000 people are on the national organ transplant waiting list. Every year, thousands of people die while waiting, and thousands more aren’t even added to the list. Now, new advancements being made with animal-to-human organ transplants, specifically using genetically modified pigs, could be a sign that those lives, and hundreds of thousands more, could be saved in the future.
Getting an organ transplant is an incredible feat of medical advancement, however, it’s incredibly hard to achieve. With over 100,000 people on the national waiting list in the US, thousands of patients die every year while waiting, and thousands of others aren’t even able to be added to the list.
Dr. Robert Montgomery, chief of NYU Langone’s transplant institute, even said that he experienced seven cardiac arrests before he even qualified to be “sick enough” to get a new heart.
Dr. Montgomery himself is a kidney transplant surgeon, who believes that in order to “fill the gap” of inequity and waiting for a transplant, the industry needs to invest in using animal organs.
AP reports that after decades of failed attempts, pigs are now genetically modified so their organs are more humanlike, so scientists and medical experts are renewing their interest in xenotransplantation. Last year, University of Maryland surgeons attempted to save a dying man with a pig heart and he survived for two months post-transplant.
Montgomery himself is getting more practice using cadavers before moving onto living patients. Both NYU and the University of Alabama at Birmingham have been keeping pig kidneys and hearts working in donated bodies for a few days to a week, avoiding immediate rejection.
Mary Miller-Duffy made the tough decision to help aid this medical journey that could save countless lives when her brother, Maurice, unfortunately ended up brain-dead. “He always wanted to help people. This tragic death, this fast short death – something good has come out of it,” she said when speaking about making the call to donate her brother’s body for research. Montgomery praised Miller-Duffy for making what feels like an impossible decision when losing a loved one.
“I’m in awe of someone who can make a decision like that at, you know, one of the worst moments in their lives and really think about … humanity.”
Initially, Miller-Duffy found out Maurice wouldn’t be able to donate his organs due to the presence of cancer in his body, and while she wasn’t familiar with what donating his body would entail at first, after learning how it could advance kidney transplants, “it struck a chord.”
Montgomery explained in detail the pig transplant process to Miller-Duffy and her wife Sue Duffy, and the ways in which it can make a difference. Both pirates had compassion and care from their perspectives.
“His body is not being hurt, you know, it’s just an incubation for the study to be done,” Duffy stated.
This experiment is preliminary to one day moving towards operating in a living patient. Montgomery removed Miller’s kidneys and Dr. Jeffrey Stern and Dr. Adam Griesemer, fellow NYU surgeons, brought kidneys they removed from a pig.
“Sewing a pig kidney into a donated body isn’t much different than a regular transplant. Post-surgery immune-suppressing drugs are standard, too,” Stern said.
Every week doctors would take a biopsy from the transplanted kidneys, another major reason this experimentation needs to be done on non-living bodies. The doctors are mainly looking for signs of rejection while the body is being properly maintained on a ventilator.
Elaina Weldon, a nurse practitioner who oversees the transplant research, stated that everyday is a mystery, but the team remains hopeful in the work they’re doing with the end goal in mind.
“Our staff doesn’t sleep that much, but every week everybody is really now at the point of, what more can we do? How far can we push?”
Weldon said that there’s major interest throughout all surgical groups and leaders regarding the future of transplant technology and research. Montgomery has said that dozens have written to him eager to participate in future studies on the living, however, the Food and Drug Administration will be the ones to decide when that can become a possibility.
Montgomery is the perfect face for this growing medical sector. His personal experience and care for his patients who have to make these difficult decisions when losing a loved one is what anyone would hope for in a doctor.
He regularly calls Miller-Duffy and her wife with updates and has extended an open invite to come to NYU to meet the team.
Montgomery will be keeping Maurice for an extended month, since the study was going well. However, he made the promise that when it came time to take him off of the ventilator, he would make sure she would be there.
“Maybe I don’t need all my organs when I go to heaven. Before I was a hard no. … Now I’m a hard yes,” Sue Duffy said in relation to her changed outlook on organ donation after working with Montgomery, and learning more throughout this process.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
