Life for Towana Looney hasn’t been simple. After giving her mom one among her kidneys in 1999, the Alabama lady thought the routine process would give her mom a brand new lease on life and herself peace of thoughts. However as a substitute, Looney would expertise an onslaught of her personal well being issues placing her life in peril.
In 2016, Looney was added to the kidney transplant checklist following her being pregnant which pressured her solely kidney into overdrive, in response to Well being Day. After being recognized with kidney failure, Looney’s choices had been restricted. However that’s when a workforce of docs in New York Metropolis introduced her with an unlikely answer.
In response to the Well being Sources & Providers Administration (HRSA), about 103,000 folks within the U.S. are presently on the kidney transplant checklist. Kidneys are the very best demanded organ within the nation, and sadly, about 13 folks die on a regular basis ready for a transplant, in response to the United Community for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
Looney, not like many sufferers, lucked out after qualifying for a U.S. Meals and Drug Administration “expanded entry” program, which would offer her with a brand new kidney, in response to Well being Day. However there was a catch: Looney wouldn’t obtain a human kidney. As an alternative, a pig’s kidney can be surgically implanted contained in the 53-year-old.
The process of transferring organs from an animal to a human is named xenotransplantation, and though the observe continues to be new — it’s solely been on the FDA web site since 2021 — Looney mentioned “sure” to the November 2024 surgical procedure. “I really feel blessed,” she mentioned after the process, in response to NYU Langone. “I’m so grateful to be alive and grateful to have obtained this unimaginable present.”
The surgical procedure was a hit, making her solely the third individual on the planet to obtain a pig kidney and the one one dwelling with any sort of porcine organ. The organ Looney obtained had 10 separate genetic edits making it extra suitable to the human physique, in response to Well being Day. And for months, the grandmother was dwelling fortunately and wholesome till one thing went improper.
100 thirty days after the surgical procedure, Looney’s physique all of a sudden rejected the kidney. On April 4, the kidney was eliminated, though docs are nonetheless uncertain what precisely went improper. Now, Looney will return to her three-times-a-week dialysis remedies, as she did earlier than the surgical procedure, in response to USA At this time.
Regardless that the transplant solely supplied Looney with a brief break from dialysis, she mentioned she’s grateful for the chance. “For the primary time since 2016, I loved time with family and friends with out planning round dialysis remedies,” she mentioned. “Although the end result isn’t what anybody wished, I do know so much was realized from my 130 days with a pig kidney—and that this might help and encourage many others of their journey to beat kidney illness.”