Another patient has received a transplant with a genetically modified pig kidney. Tim Andrews, a 66-year-old who lives in Concord, N.H., has end-stage kidney disease and had been on dialysis for more than two years to compensate for his failing kidney function.

It was the fourth pig kidney transplant in the United States, and the first of three that will be done at Mass General as part of a new clinical trial sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration. Two of the previous patients died shortly after the procedure, including one who was critically ill before the transplant.

MONDAY, Feb. 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital have successfully performed the fourth pig kidney transplant in the U.S. The recipient of the genetically modified pig organ was a 66-year-old man with kidney failure, surgeons said.

The recipient was Tim Andrews, a 66-year-old New Hampshire resident who had end-stage kidney disease and was on dialysis for more than two years.

The surgery comes at a turning point in the quest to tell if animal-to-human transplants could help ease the shortage of donated human organs.

The first clinical trials using organs from genetically modified pigs offer hope to patients with kidney failure, who face a long wait for human organ transplants.

A team at Massachusetts General Hospital led by Harvard Medical School physician-scientists has for the second time successfully transplanted a genetically edited pig kidney into a living person. The team performed the first surgery of its kind in the world in March 2024.

The research offers hope to tens of thousands of patients with kidney failure who are on a long waiting list for an organ transplant.

The first recipient of a gene-edited pig kidney died from cardiac causes 52 days after xenotransplantation. The world's first recipient of a gene-edited pig kidney died from cardiac causes within 2 months, but there was no evidence of xenograft rejection, a brief report detailed.