Towana Looney, 53, received a pig kidney transplant at NYU Langone Health, a historic step in xenotransplantation. The surgery, led by Dr. Robert Montgomery, freed Looney from eight years of dialysis. Looney is recovering well and expects to return home to Alabama in three months. This groundbreaking procedure paves the way for formal studies of xenotransplantation expected to begin next year.
Pig kidney recipient Towana Looney is visited by Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health , center, on Dec. 10, 2024, at NYU Langone Health , in New York City. last month that freed her from eight years of dialysis, the latest effort to save human lives with animal organs.
Looney is recuperating well after her transplant, which was announced Tuesday. She was discharged from the hospital just 11 days after surgery to continue recovery in a nearby apartment although temporarily readmitted this week while her medications are adjusted. Doctors expect her to return home to Alabama in three months. If the pig kidney were to fail, she could begin dialysis again.
Looney donated a kidney to her mother in 1999. Later a complication during pregnancy caused high blood pressure that damaged her remaining kidney, which eventually failed. It’s incredibly rare for living donors to develop kidney failure although those who do are given extra priority on the transplant list.
Those disappointing outcomes didn’t dissuade Looney, who was starting to feel worse on dialysis but, Locke said, hadn’t developed heart disease or other complications. The FDA eventually allowed her transplant at NYU, where Locke collaborated with Montgomery.
Xenotransplantation Organ Transplant Pig Kidney Medical Breakthrough Dialysis
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