Synthetic transplant hailed as first

Friday July 8th, 2011

A 36-year-old man is due to leave a Swedish hospital today after a revolutionary windpipe operation.

The man's new windpipe - or trachea - is made from a synthetic material that was "seeded" with his own stem cells.

The operation is claimed as the first of its kind world wide - opening the way for many patients to get speedy treatment rather than waiting for donor organs.

There is not thought to be any risk of rejection of the implant - as it uses the patient's own cells - and unlike other patients, no drugs for immunosuppression have been used.

Professor Paolo Macchiarini, of the Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, developed the technique from a procedure used to adapt donor windpipes by seeding them with stem cells. Instead of a donated organ, an artificial windpipe was created at University College, London, UK, by engineers using nano-components a fraction of the size of a human hair.

Professor Macchiarini said: "Transplantations of tissue engineered windpipes with synthetic scaffolds in combination with the patient's own stem cells, as a standard procedure, means that patients will not have to wait for a suitable donor organ.

"This would be a substantial benefit for patients since they could benefit from earlier surgery and have a greater chance of cure. In addition to treating adult patients, tissue engineered synthetic trachea transplants would, not least, be of great value for children, since the availability of donor tracheas is much lower than for adult patients."

The patient, from Iceland, was suffering from late-stage tracheal cancer which had almost completely blocked his windpipe.

Tags: Europe | Transplant

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