A woman from Alabama who lived with a pig kidney for a record 130 days had the organ removed after her body started to reject it and is now back on dialysis, doctors have announced. Tawana Looney is now recovering well and has returned home after her removal surgery, which was successful at NYU Langone Health.

In a statement, she thanked her doctors for “the opportunity to be part of this incredible research.” However, the doctors have expressed disappointment in the ongoing quest for animal-to-human transplants. “Though the outcome is not what anyone wanted, I know a lot was learnt from my 130 days with a pig kidney — and that this can help and inspire many others in their journey to overcoming kidney disease,” Looney added.

Scientists are altering pigs genetically to make their organs more humanlike in a bid to address a severe shortage of human organs for transplant. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 100,000 people are on the US transplant list - most who need a kidney, and many die waiting.

Before Looney underwent the transplant, only four other Americans had received experimental xenotransplants of gene-edited pig organs—hearts and kidneys—which did not last for more than two months. All of those recipients died.

However, according to researchers, all of them were sick before the surgery, and so they are now attempting transplants on slightly less sick patients, like Looney. Experts say another man who received a pig kidney in January this year is doing well. In China, scientists have also announced a successful kidney xenotransplant.

Looney's transplant took place in November last year after she had been on dialysis since 2016. Her doctors said she did not qualify for a regular transplant as her body was abnormally primed to reject a human kidney. So, she sought out a pig kidney, and it functioned well until early this month when her body began rejecting it.

According to Looney's surgeon, Dr. Robert Montgomery, the NYU xenotransplant pioneer investigations are on as to what triggered rejection. He also added that Looney and her doctors agreed it would be less risky to remove the pig kidney than to try saving it with higher, riskier doses of anti-rejection drugs. “We did the safe thing,” Montgomery told The Associated Press. “She’s no worse off than she was before (the xenotransplant), and she would tell you she’s better off because she had this four-and-a-half-month break from dialysis.”

Doctors say rejection is a common threat after transplants of human organs and sometimes even costs patients their new organs. Doctors face a balancing act in tamping down patients’ immune systems just enough to preserve the new organ while allowing them to fight infection. However, with xenotransplantation, it is an even bigger challenge.

Even though the pig organs have been altered to prevent immediate rejection, patients still require immune-suppressing drugs.

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