The pig’s kidney removed from the woman Alabama Towana Loney after the record 130 days

A woman in Alabama living with a pork kidney for a record 130 days had removed the organ after her body began to reject it and returned to dialysis, doctors announced Friday-a disappointment in the continued search for human animal transplants.

Towana Looney is well healing from April 4 removal operation at NYU Languone Health and has returned home to Gadsden, Alabama. In a statement, she thanked her doctors for “the opportunity to be part of this extraordinary study”.

“Although the result is not what someone wanted, I know that many were taught from my 130 days with a pig kidney – and that it can help and inspire many others in their journey to overcome kidney disease,” Loney added.

Scientists are genetically changing pigs, so their organs are more human to address a severe lack of transplanted human organs. More than 100,000 people are on the US transplant list, most who need a kidney, and thousands die waiting.

Prior to Looney’s transplant, only four other Americans had received experimental xenotransplants of pigs edited with genius-hearts and two kidneys that lasted no more than two months. Those recipients, who were seriously ill before surgery, died.

Now researchers are trying these transplants in little less sick patients, like Loney. A New Hampshire man who took a pork kidney in January is getting away well and a strict study of pigs transplants is set to start this summer. Chinese researchers also recently announced a successful kidney xenotransplantation.

Looney had been on dialysis since 2016 and did not qualify for regular transplantation – her body was abnormally ready to reject a human kidney. So she asked for a pig’s kidney and worked well-she called herself “Superwoman” and lived longer than anyone with a pork organ edited earlier, from her November 25th to early April, when her body began to reject it.

Pioneer of NYU Xenotransplant Dr. Robert Montgomery, Looney’s surgeon, said what caused the refusal to be being investigated. But he said Loney and her doctors agreed that it would be less dangerous to remove the pig kidney than to try to save it with higher, more dangerous doses of anti -rejection medication.

“We did the safe thing,” Montgomery told the Associated Press. “She’s not worse than she was before (xenotransplanti) and she would tell you it’s better because she had this 4½ months of dialysis.”

Shortly before the refusal began, Loney had suffered an infection about its previous time on dialysis and its anti -immune rejection medicines were slightly decreased, Montgomery said. At the same time, its immune system was being reactivated after transplantation. These factors may have combined to damage the new kidney, he said.

Rejection is a common threat after human organ transplants, too, and sometimes costs patients their new organ. Doctors face a balanced act in reducing patients’ immune systems just to maintain the new organ while allowing them to fight the infection.

It is an even greater challenge with xenotransplantation. While these pig organs have been changed to help prevent immediate rejection, patients still seek immune -containing medicines. What medicines are the best to prevent different, later forms of refusal are not clear, said Dr. Tatsuo Kawai from the General Hospital of Massachusetts, another pioneer of xenotransplant. Different research groups are using different combinations, he said.

“When we have more experience, we will know what kind of immunosuppression is really needed for xenotransplantin,” Kawai said

Montgomery said Looney’s experience offers valuable lessons for the next clinical test.

Making xenotransplanti after all “will be won with single and double, not swinging the fence whenever we make one of these,” he said.