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Damaged Human Lungs Can Be Repaired by Attaching Them to Pigs, Experiment Shows:
The sad reality of terminal lung illnesses is that there are simply far more patients than there are donor lungs available. This isn't just because of the low number of donors, which would be problem enough, but many donor lungs are significantly damaged, rendering them unusable.
By using a new experimental technique, though, such a damaged lung has now been restored to function - by sharing its circulatory system with that of a living pig. This leverages the body's self-repair mechanisms to exceed the capabilities of current donor lung restoration techniques.
"It is the provision of intrinsic biological repair mechanisms over long-enough periods of time that enabled us to recover severely damaged lungs that cannot otherwise be saved," say the lead researchers, surgeon Ahmed Hozain and biomedical engineer John O'Neill of Columbia University.
[...] In 2017, O'Neill led the development of the xenogeneic (cross-species) cross-circulation platform. Last year, two of the researchers, biomedical engineer Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic of Columbia University and surgeon Matthew Bacchetta of the Vanderbilt Lung Institute, led a study in which they restored damaged pig lungs by attaching them to other pigs.
Earlier this year, the team extended the operation time of the platform to four days.
Now, the researchers have revealed that they have successfully used the same technique to repair five damaged human lungs by connecting them to pigs, including one severely injured lung that had failed to recover function using EVLP.
"We were able to recover a donor lung that failed to recover on the clinical ex vivo lung perfusion system, which is the current standard of care," Vunjak-Novakovic said. "This was the most rigorous validation of our cross-circulation platform to date, showing great promise for its clinical utility."
[...] It's not quite ready for clinical use, though. For one, the pigs could share things other than their blood. Like disease, for instance.
Because of this, any clinical use of the technique would require medical-grade animals, which would not be cheap - but it's nonetheless something that is under investigation for use in xenotransplantation, in which pigs' organs can be transplanted in human recipients. (This is currently being tested in baboons.)
The other option is that the human recipients themselves could potentially become the basis for the cross-circulation platform, being attached to the lungs they will themselves receive, and maybe even other kinds of organs one day.
"Modifications to the xenogeneic cross-circulation circuit could enable investigation and recovery of other human organs, including livers, hearts, kidneys and limbs," the researchers wrote in their paper.
"Ultimately, we envision that xenogeneic cross-circulation could be utilised as both a translational research platform to augment transplantation research and as a biomedical technology to help address the organ shortage by enabling the recovery of previously unsalvageable donor organs."
Journal Reference:
Ahmed E. Hozain, John D. O’Neill, Meghan R. Pinezich, et al. Xenogeneic cross-circulation for extracorporeal recovery of injured human lungs, Nature Medicine (DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-0971-8)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Tuesday July 14 2020, @10:01PM (4 children)
Cancer treatment considered a success if it prolongs life for 6 months. I am sure covid will get the same morality base.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by choose another one on Wednesday July 15 2020, @12:07AM (2 children)
Covid already has a different morality base, namely: "it only kills people with pre-existing conditions, which means they were going to die soon anyway".
Now, actually, it doesn't, it only mostly kills those people and the vast majority of people with "pre-existing conditions" aren't going to die any time soon, unless they get covid, BUT the real kicker is this:
If Covid doesn't kill you it can still (and, it seems, very frequently does in those who are hospitalised) leave you with one or all of:
* lung damage (for fun, look up the prognosis and life expectancy for pulmonary fibrosis)
* kidney damage (oh good, dialysis for life, maybe not for long though...)
* nuked pancreas (yup, type 1 diabetes)
* permanent heart damage
...and a bunch of other stuff
Now, when Covid comes around again, as it surely will because the world is full of fuckwits spreading it because trying not to infringes their freedoms, it'll be no problem because the survivors will be immune. Er, nope, not looking like it, looking like immunity is 3-6 months, maybe a year, maybe if we're really really lucky 2-3years like SARS-1. Think our species will have acquired a clue, globally, by then? - er, nope, so no immunity.
When those survivors get it again, they will now have a "pre-existing condition" - look at the list of what covid leaves you with, and look up the will-probably-die-of-covid risk factors. Surviving it is just the start of your problems, when it comes round for another bite you have to survive it again, and maybe again and again. Think common cold, but much much more deadly.
So.... the punchline is, when those survivors get it again, and are much much more likely to die, they won't matter, because... "they had a pre-existing condition, which means they were going to die soon anyway".
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday July 15 2020, @12:28AM
When I was a kid long time ago it was, pneumonia was considered a chronic disease. Whoever got it was way more likely to get it again; reasons unknown.
I expect this one to be the same. All the "survivors", regardless of age, will die relatively soon.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @01:37AM
Stupidity is a pre-existing condition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @01:42AM
Depending upon the type, that could be a doubling of the life expectency when diagnosed. My Uncle was diagnosed with leukemia near the end of February and died the first of the next July, which was like 4 months later. But for less aggressive cancers, like my mother's breast cancer which took the cells they missed the first time roughly 16 years to divide enough to be detectable again, 6 months would be an absolutely ridiculous yardstick to use.