NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — Doctors have transplanted a pig kidney into a New Jersey woman who was near death, part of two rounds of surgery that also stabilized her failing heart.

Lisa Pisano’s combination of heart and kidney failure left her too ill to qualify for a traditional transplant. Doctors at NYU Langone Health devised a novel approach: Implant a mechanical pump to keep her heart beating and transplant a kidney from a genetically modified pig.

She is only the second patient to receive a pig kidney, following a landmark transplant in March at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Pisano is recovering well, the NYU team said Wednesday. This week, Pisano, 54, grasped a walker and took a few steps.

“I was at the end of my rope,” Pisano told The Associated Press. “I just took a chance. And you know, worst-case scenario, if it didn’t work for me, it might have worked for someone else and it could have helped the next person.”

Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the institute, recounted cheers in the operating room as the organ immediately started producing urine.

Pisano is the first woman to receive a pig organ. Unlike with prior xenotransplant experiments, both her heart and kidneys had failed. She went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated before the experimental surgery.

Heart failure made her ineligible for a traditional kidney transplant. While on dialysis, she didn’t qualify for a heart pump or LVAD, either.

With emergency permission from U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Montgomery chose an organ from a pig genetically engineered by United Therapeutics. 

In addition, the donor pig’s thymus gland, which trains the immune system, was attached to the donated kidney in hopes that it would help Pisano’s body tolerate the new organ.

Surgeons implanted the LVAD to power Pisano’s heart on April 4, and transplanted the pig kidney on April 12.

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