内容摘要：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

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

“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)After decades of failed attempts, now pigs genetically modified so their organs are more humanlike are renewing interest in so-called xenotransplantation. Last year,

tried to save a dying man with a pig heart — and he survived for two months.Montgomery is getting more practice in the dead before taking a chance with a living patient. A handful of prior experiments at NYU and the

have kept pig kidneys and hearts working in donated bodies for a few days to a week, avoiding the immediate rejection that doomed many earlier attempts.

But the most common kind of organ rejection develops over a month. That pig heart in Maryland worked great for nearly 50 days until abruptly faltering. Watching how pig kidneys reach those timepoints in donated bodies could offer vital lessons — but how long could Montgomery expect a family to turn over their loved one?Too sick to care for himself alone, Hermida eventually moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, to be closer to family and in hopes of receiving more consistent health care. He enrolled in an

clinic that receives funding from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, a federal safety-net plan that serves over half of those in the country diagnosed with HIV, regardless of their citizenship status.His HIV became undetectable after he was connected with case managers. But over time, communication with the clinic grew less frequent, he said, and he didn’t get regular interpretation help during visits with his English-speaking doctor. An Amity Medical Group representative confirmed Hermida was a client but didn’t answer questions about his experience at the clinic.

Hermida said he had a hard time filling out paperwork to stay enrolled in the Ryan White program, and when his eligibility expired in September 2023, he couldn’t get his medication.He left the clinic and enrolled in a health plan through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. But Hermida didn’t realize the insurer required him to pay for a share of his HIV treatment.