6 Renal & Urology News
SUMMER 2022
www.renalandurologynews.com
FROM THE EDITOR EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Xenotransplantation Reaches a Milestone
A
fter decades of failed attempts at transplanting kidneys from one person to another, Joseph Murray, MD, a surgeon at the former Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, achieved success in 1954 when he transplanted a kidney between identical twin brothers. Reporting on their findings in Surgical Forum in 1955, Dr Murray and his coauthors noted that the recipient had good renal function persisting after 9 months.1 “The survival of the renal homograft for this period of time with continuing good function indicates the complete lack of a rejection response by the host and demonstrates that renal transplantation is a technically feasible procedure,” they concluded. Several years later, Dr Murray performed a successful kidney transplant between non-identical twin brothers.2 Since then, development and continued improvement of immunosuppressive medications, better donor-recipient matching criteria, and other advancements have made kidney transplantation routine. In 2021, 24,670 kidney transplant procedures took place in the United States, up from 22,817 in 2020, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Among the most formidable challenges today, however, is the lack of kidneys for transplantation. As a result, 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney transplant, according to the National Kidney Foundation. Among the options being considered to ease the problem is xenotransplantation—the transplantation of organs or tissues from nonhuman animals into human beings. Numerous hurdles need to be resolved for this to work successfully, but investigators in 2022 reported an important milestone in the endeavor. Two separate teams—one at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute in New York City and another at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)—described how they transplanted kidneys from genetically modified pigs into brain-dead human beings with encouraging results. (See article on page 22.) “Our results add significantly to the prior knowledge generated in non-human primate models and suggest that many barriers to xenotransplantation in humans have indeed been surmounted,” the UAB team wrote in a paper in the American Journal of Transplantation.3 They also noted that “the decedent model has significant potential to propel not only the field of xenotransplantation forward but to answer a multitude of other scientific questions unique to the human condition.” Kidney transplantation is considered the optimal treatment for endstage kidney disease, but the performance of the procedure is limited by a shortage of usable kidneys.The latest reports offer hope that this impediment could disappear or at least diminish in coming years. Jody A. Charnow Editor 1. Murray JE et al. Renal homotransplantation in identical twins. Surg Forum. 1955;6:432–436. 2. Murray JE, et al. Kidney transplantation in modified recipients. Ann Surg. 1962; 156:337–355. 3. Porrett PM, et al. First clinical-grade porcine kidney xenotransplant using a human decedent model. Am J Transplant. 2022;22:1037-1053.
Medical Director, Urology
Medical Director, Nephrology
Robert G. Uzzo, MD, MBA, FACS G. Willing “Wing” Pepper Chair in Cancer Research Professor and Chairman Department of Surgery Fox Chase Cancer Center Temple University School of Medicine Philadelphia
Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh, MD, PhD, MPH Professor & Chief, Division of Nephrology, Hypertension & Kidney Transplantation UC Irvine School of Medicine Orange, CA
Nephrologists Anthony J. Bleyer, MD, MS Professor of Internal Medicine/Nephrology Wake Forest University School of Medicine Winston-Salem, NC
Urologists Christopher S. Cooper, MD Director, Pediatric Urology Children’s Hospital of Iowa Iowa City
David S. Goldfarb, MD Professor, Department of Medicine Clinical Chief New York University Langone Medical Center Chief of Nephrology NY Harbor VA Medical Center
R. John Honey, MD Head, Division of Urology, Endourology/Kidney Stone Diseases St. Michael’s Hospital University of Toronto
Csaba P. Kovesdy, MD Chief of Nephrology Memphis VA Medical Center Fred Hatch Professor of Medicine University of Tennessee Health Science Center Memphis
Stanton Honig, MD Department of Urology Yale University School of Medicine New Haven, CT J. Stephen Jones, MD Chief Executive Officer Inova Health System Falls Church, VA Professor and Horvitz/Miller Distinguished Chair in Urologic Oncology (ret.) Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine Cleveland Jaime Landman, MD Professor of Urology and Radiology Chairman, Department of Urology UC Irvine School of Medicine Orange, CA James M. McKiernan, MD John K. Lattimer Professor of Urology Chair, Department of Urology Director, Urologic Oncology Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons New York Kenneth Pace, MD, MSc Assistant Professor, Division of Urology St. Michael’s Hospital University of Toronto Vancouver, Canada
Edgar V. Lerma, MD Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine Section of Nephrology Department of Medicine University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine Chicago Allen Nissenson, MD Emeritus Professor of Medicine The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Chief Medical Officer, DaVita Inc. Denver Rulan Parekh, MD, MS Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine University of Toronto Robert Provenzano, MD Associate Professor of Medicine Wayne State University School of Medicine Detroit Vice President of Medical Affairs, DaVita Healthcare Denver
Renal & Urology News Staff Editor
Jody A. Charnow
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Renal & Urology News (ISSN 1550-9478) Volume 21, Number 3. Published quarterly by Haymarket Media, Inc., 275 7th Avenue, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10001. For Advertising Sales & Editorial, call (646) 638-6000 (M–F, 9am–5pm, ET). For reprint/licensing requests, contact Customer Service at custserv@haymarketmedia.com. Postmaster: Send address changes to Renal & Urology News, c/o Direct Medical Data, 10255 W. Higgins Rd., Suite 280, Rosemont, IL 60018. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Haymarket Media, Inc. Copyright © 2022.
