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Comment by pazimzadeh | Hacker News Reader

It really depends on the organ. Kidneys stand out as the most successful organs for transplantation, even in allotransplantation (between humans) so it makes sense that they are working well in xeno as well.

Kidneys are not as vascularized as some other organs (heart or lung) which probably helps a lot.

Heart and lung xenotransplantation are still a ways off and a lot of basic research is still needed to make them work.

My mom worked with eGenesis on pig xenotransplantation, particularly lung.

Here are some links if you'd like to donate to the International Xenotransplantation Association:

https://donate.tts.org/agnes/

https://tts.org/74-ixa/889-ixa-in-memoriam-agnes-marie-azimz...

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A family member needed a kidney transplant in the early 60s. This was in the UK where the first successful transplant was in 1959, so just a few years earlier.

Thanks to a kid on a motorcycle she got a kidney just in the nick of time.

She was in her early 20s and was told she could expect a few years. Because of that she never had kids.

Her donated kidney served her well and she lived a quite normal life. She passed when it finally gave up when she was close to 70.

So those "few years" turned into almost 50.

Interestingly she mentioned she was told to take some strong medicine after the transplant. She got this feeling it wasn't good for her and stopped taking them soon after, without telling the docs of course.

She always wondered if that was the reason it held out so long.

Not a doctor, but I suppose she should’ve eventually told them in the interest of science. Also, pregnancy has a heavy toll so who knows? Maybe it was a good thing she didn’t. We don’t know.

> Not a doctor, but I suppose she should’ve eventually told them in the interest of science.

Glad she had a largely fulfilling life, but also thinking this. As much as it was her choice what to do with her body, it’s probably a good idea to at least tell the healthcare professionals about things like that, even if after the fact.

> it’s probably a good idea to at least tell the healthcare professionals

No, the pipeline to handle this feedback is completely missing from modern medical practices.

There is not really any way for a doctor to make use of this information to advance medical research.

> Interestingly she mentioned she was told to take some strong medicine after the transplant. She got this feeling it wasn't good for her and stopped taking them soon after, without telling the docs of course.

Typically, after a kidney transplant, patients are instructed to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives. This is to reduce the risk of the patient's body rejecting the transplanted organ. Your family member was just straight up lucky that her body didn't reject the organ, even without any immunosuppression.

One thing that's fascinating to me is that most immunosuppressant drugs used today hadn't yet been discovered in the early 60s! AFAIK, all they would have had was prednisone, prednisolone, and azathioprine. Back then, a kidney transplant aided by these drugs would have been as new and revolutionary as the Hepatitis C cure or the triple-drug therapy for cystic fibrosis is today.

> Your family member was just straight up lucky

That was my thought as well when she told me. Then again, when given just a few years perhaps one considers these things a bit differently. The side effects for the drugs you listed does indeed not sound like a lot of fun.

Oh yeah, they suck. Long-term effects of just prednisone can include everything from muscle weakness to reduced bone density to spontaneously developing diabetes. Generally, doctors prescribe these kinds of drugs for longer than a couple months only in situations where the risks of not taking them are worse than the many, many side effects of taking them long-term.

Amazing story. Thanks for sharing. It shows how resilience and intuition matter.

I don't think it shows much.

It's one anecdote. In the hierarch of significance this is below even the "one published paper" level which you certainly should also ignore even if you know enough to interpret the paper.

It's really good she lived for 50 years with an kidney transplant. But it is a massive stretch to say that she willed herself to last that long.

Maybe what we need is more motorcycles.

They do help a lot[1], especially without helmets[2].

[1]: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/motorcycle-rallies-and-o...

[2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33334475/

Maybe organ donation should be an opt out process.

Totally agree that kidneys are the logical starting point. Lower immunological complexity + less vascularization makes them more forgiving as a test case. The lung, on the other hand… yeah, that's a whole different beast

>...that's a whole different beast

...so's the donor! (I'll see myself out...)

There have already been a couple of attempted heart xenotransplants? Lawrence Faucette being the most recent patient that I've read about.

yep, but they didn't last as long. six weeks max I think?

Pigs are already helping out with lung transplantation[0]. It's a ways off from where this kidney trial is, but very promising.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/aug/25/surgeons-tra...

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