Due to her heart and kidney failure, Lisa Pisano was too sick to be considered for a conventional transplant.
The 54-year-old New Jersey resident “took a chance” and became the first patient and woman to ever get a genetically altered pig kidney.
In a first for the world, Ms. Pisano consented to having a pig kidney transplanted a few days after a mechanical pump to maintain her heart’s circulation was implanted at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute in New York.
“I was at the end of my rope,” she remarked. I basically went with my gut.
In the worst case scenario, even if it didn’t work for me, it might have helped the next person who tried it.
Todd, her husband, said: “I get to see my wife smile again with this surgery.”
