Surgeon claims world-first spinal cord transplant in Moscow

Surgeon Xiaoping Ren says a 12-hour operation at Moscow's Sklifosovsky Institute transplanted a spinal cord section from a brain-dead donor into a patient with a complete injury sustained three years earlier. Polyethylene glycol was used to fuse the tissues, but no clinical outcomes or peer-reviewed data have been released.

• Surgery at Moscow's Sklifosovsky Institute reportedly lasted 12 hours
• Donor tissue was joined using microsurgery and polyethylene glycol
• Recipient had a complete spinal cord injury from three years ago
• No neurological assessments or evidence of improvement disclosed