First Patient to Receive Pig Kidney Transplant Discharged Two Weeks After Surgery

The first man to receive a genetically modified kidney transplant from a pig has been discharged from hospital.

The 62-year-old was sent home on Wednesday, two weeks after the ground-breaking surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

Organ transplants from genetically modified pigs have failed in the past.

But the success of this procedure so far has been hailed by scientists as a historic milestone in the field of transplantation.

The news was shared in a press release on Wednesday by MGH, which is Harvard Medical School’s largest teaching hospital in the US city of Boston.

In the release, the hospital said the patient, Richard “Rick” Slayman of Weymouth, Massachusetts, had been battling end-stage kidney disease and required an organ transplant.

His doctors successfully transplanted a genetically-edited pig kidney into his body over a four-hour-long surgery on 16 March.

They said Mr Slayman’s kidney is now functioning well and he is no longer on dialysis.

In a statement, Mr Slayman said being able to leave hospital and go home was “one of the happiest moments” of his life.