A man with end-stage renal disease who earlier this year became the first human to receive a new kidney from a genetically modified pig has died, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/CrtrU

  • gregorum@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    tl;dr:

    “The Mass General transplant team is deeply saddened at the sudden passing of Mr. Rick Slayman,” the hospital said in a statement on Saturday. “We have no indication that it was the result of his recent transplant.” [emphasis added]

    • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      also even if it was, could the man survived that long without the kidney?

      • gregorum@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Likely no. The patient had several other severe health issues, any one of which (or, more likely, a combination of which) caused his death. His new mutant kidney was probably the healthiest thing inside him.

        • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          His new mutant kidney was probably the healthiest thing inside him that’s rough

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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      6 months ago

      That’s the problem with using experimental procedures on terminally ill patients. The data is crap because you sont know if the procedure killed them or if they just were never gonna make it. .

      • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
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        6 months ago

        True, but there’s not many healthy people lining up to get pig organs implanted so this is realistically the best human data we can get until it’s proven to work.

      • Dippy@beehaw.org
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        6 months ago

        The data is pretty bad, but it’s most ethical to try on people who don’t have better options

        • gregorum@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          Although, considering all of the other health problems that this patient had, we don’t know that, if this were his only problem, it wouldn’t have.

          In other words: it might have, if not for everything else wrong with this guy.

      • lazyViking@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I guess we found out if it was very immediately killing them, and post-mortem, could probably see (a little bit), how much the kidney was to blame