Woman Becomes First Patient to Undergo Combined Heart Pump Implant and Pig Kidney Transplant

A fifty-four-year-old woman became the first person to simultaneously receive a gene-edited pig kidney transplant and mechanical heart valve implantation. Surgeons performed the heart pump procedure first before performing the transplant days later. Due to the severity of her condition, the patient was not eligible for traditional kidney transplant, but is doing well after the innovative procedure was performed on April 11.