Doctors transplant windpipe with stem cells

Instead of removing a lung, the windpipe transplant was the solution, and this occurred in Spain. Once the donor was located the physicians went to work with stripping off all its cells, leaving only a tube of connective tissue and next used a device to put the new cartilage and tissue in place. The nice part is that the patient is not having to take any immune-suppressing drugs too.

Stem cell research at it’s best for the patient who has been suffering from tuberculosis for years. BD

(AP) -- Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs. "This technique has great promise," said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done. If successful, the procedure could become a new standard of treatment, said Genden, who was not involved in the research. The results were published online Wednesday in the medical journal, The Lancet.