内容摘要：“It is luxury for a pig,” Ayares said. “But these are very valuable animals. They’re very smart animals. I’ve watched piglets play with balls together like soccer.”

“It is luxury for a pig,” Ayares said. “But these are very valuable animals. They’re very smart animals. I’ve watched piglets play with balls together like soccer.”

Pisano is recovering well, the NYU team announced Wednesday. She’s only the second patient ever to receive a pig kidney -- following a landmark transplant– and the latest in a string of attempts to make animal-to-human transplantation a reality.

This week, the 54-year-old grasped a walker and took her first few steps.“I was at the end of my rope,” Pisano told The Associated Press. “I just took a chance. And you know, worst case scenario, if it didn’t work for me, it might have worked for someone else and it could have helped the next person.”Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone Transplant Institute, recounted cheers in the operating room as the organ immediately started making urine.

Lisa Pisano looks at photos of her dog after her surgeries at NYU Langone Health in New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. Doctors transplanted a pig kidney into Pisano, who was near death, part of a dramatic pair of surgeries that also included a fix for her failing heart. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)Lisa Pisano looks at photos of her dog after her surgeries at NYU Langone Health in New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. Doctors transplanted a pig kidney into Pisano, who was near death, part of a dramatic pair of surgeries that also included a fix for her failing heart. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)

“It’s been transformative,” Montgomery said of the experiment’s early results.

But “we’re not off the hook yet,” cautioned Dr. Nader Moazami, the NYU cardiac surgeon who implanted the heart pump.Getting an organ transplant today is a long shot. More than 100,000 people are on the national waiting list, most who need a kidney. Thousands die waiting. Thousands more who could benefit aren’t even added to the list.

“I had seven cardiac arrests before I even was sick enough” to qualify for a new heart, said Dr. Robert Montgomery, chief of NYU Langone’s transplant institute. He’s a kidney transplant surgeon — and was lucky enough to get his own heart transplant in 2018.Filling the gap, he’s convinced, will require using animal organs.

Mary Miller-Duffy speaks with Dr. Robert Montgomery in the NYU Langone Health medical center in New York on Aug. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)Mary Miller-Duffy speaks with Dr. Robert Montgomery in the NYU Langone Health medical center in New York on Aug. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)