The Alabama woman has become the longest -running recipient of transplanted pork organs.
Towana Looney, 53, crossed the turning point on Saturday, January 25, when it was announced that “healthy and full energy” was 61 days after the transplant, according to Associate Press.
“I’m a super woman,” she told the newspaper. – It’s a new view of life.
Looney is a fifth patient who was given a genes of a pork organ of 2022 – and the third who got the kidney – by The New York Times.
None of the other recipients survived for more than two months.
Towana Looney in December 2024.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty
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“If you saw her on the street, you wouldn’t have the idea that she was the only person in the world walking around with a pork organ in himself,” said Dr. Robert Montgomery of Nyu Langone Health for AP.
Montgomery, who led Looney’s transplant, called her kidney work “absolutely normal”. Now the doctors hope that they will be able to return to their home in Gadsden, Alabama, in about the next month.
“We are pretty optimistic that this will continue to function and function well through, you know, a significant time period,” Montgomery said.
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In December, it was announced that Looney “recovered well” after transplantation in November. The patient was discharged from the hospital 11 days after surgery.
Looney had already donated her kidney to her mother in 1999, before her remaining kidney was later damaged – and eventually canceled – because of her pregnancy complications, AP reported. She developed high levels of antibodies, which meant she was likely to reject other human organs.
“It’s like a new beginning,” she told the newspaper at the time. “The energy I had was amazing. Having a kidney that works – and feel it – is amazing.”
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“You don’t know whether or not to succeed until you try,” she admitted.
AP said that scientists “genetically change pigs to make their organs more similar to human” because there is a lack of organ donations. The release added that more than 100,000 people remained on the US transplant list, many of which are waiting for a kidney.
About 5600 Americans die each year waiting for the human organ to become available, according to data USA Today.
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Source: HIS Education