WEDNESDAY, April 16, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- A new clinical trial will soon test if a pig liver can help people whose own livers have suddenly stopped working.

The hope? That animal organs can temporarily filter a patient’s blood, giving their own liver time to rest and possibly recover.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first-of-its-kind study, according to eGenesis, a Massachusetts-based company that produces gene-edited pigs, the Associated Press reported.

The company is partnering with OrganOx, a British firm that makes organ-preserving machines, to run the study.

Each year, about 35,000 people in the United States are hospitalized with sudden liver failure.

Treatment options are limited, and the condition has a death rate as high as 50%. Many patients don’t qualify for a liver transplant or can’t get one in time.

Instead of a full transplant, researchers plan to hook patients up to a machine that attaches the pig liver externally. The device — made by OrganOx — pumps the patient's blood through the pig liver to filter it.

The liver is the only organ in the body that can actually regenerate, so researchers will need to see whether having the pig’s liver filter the patient’s blood for several days could give it that chance, the Associated Press reported.

In earlier lab tests using four cadavers, the pig liver helped support some human liver functions for two to three days, Mike Curtis, CEO of eGenesis, said.

The new trial will enroll up to 20 patients in intensive care who aren't eligible for a transplant.

The study is part of a larger push to see if organs from gene-edited pigs can be used to help people. Other trials are testing pig kidneys from both eGenesis and United Therapeutics in experimental transplants, the Associated Press reported.

More information

The National Kidney Foundation has more on xenotransplantation.

SOURCE: Associated Press, April 15, 2025