Pig Kidney Transplant Recipient Dies 2 Months After Path-Breaking Surgery

New York: Nearly two months after becoming the first recipient of a genetically modified pig kidney transplant, Rick Slayman has died, his family informed.

Surgeons who had performed the path-breaking surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in March, had said they believed the pig kidney would last at least two years.

The transplant team expressed deep sadness at the death of 62-year-old Slayman. Offering condolences to the family, the doctors said they didn’t have any indication that he died as a result of the transplant.

Slayman’s family held no grudges against the transplant team.

“Their enormous efforts leading the xenotransplant gave our family seven more weeks with Rick, and our memories made during that time will remain in our minds and hearts,” the family said in a statement.

They said Slayman underwent the surgery partly to provide hope for thousands of people who need a transplant to survive.

“Rick accomplished that goal and his hope and optimism will endure forever,” the statement said.

Slayman did have a normal kidney transplant at the hospital in 2018, but was on dialysis last year. But then dialysis complications cropped up, and doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant.