Such trials have been performed with kidney and heart transplants, drastically extending the time the animals were surviving without immunosuppressing drugs.
[5] The first human heart-and-thymus co-transplantation was performed on Easton Sinnamon in 2022, a newborn who suffered from both a lack of T cells, and a serious heart defect.
Depending on the development, it is planned to wean him off immunosuppressant drugs, but it remains to be seen whether the same technique is viable in adults, as the thymus shrinks with age, with the bone marrow taking over T cell production.
[6] A study of 54 DiGeorge syndrome infants resulted in all tested subjects having developed polyclonal T-cell repertoires and proliferative responses to mitogens.
[9] However, this is partially explained by that the indication itself, that is, complete DiGeorge syndrome, increases the risk of autoimmune disease.