Windpipe Stem Cell Surgery– Regenerative Medicine Offering Solution to Cancer Patients

Back in 2008 a similar story broke in the news with a donor being located for surgery to replace a woman’s windpipe. The donor windpipe was stripped of all cells leaving a platform or scaffold to build upon and the good part about stem cell transplants as such is that the patient does not require anti rejection drugs.

Doctors transplant windpipe with stem cells

The technology used here is phenomenal with the organ functioning until the stem cells transform it to a functioning organ. The patients involved had little alternatives other than to face a certain death at some point in time as the cancer would grow. It will take around 2 to 3 months for the stem cells to completely cover the windpipe. Stem cell research and use is growing in many areas and you may want to look at how joint replacements are moving in the same direction at the link below and this is now possible in the US. BD

Future of Joint Replacements – Regenerative Medicine - Dr. Kevin Stone Regrows the Knee Instead of an Artificial Replacement (Video)

Doctors have successfully transplanted windpipes into two cancer patients in an innovative procedure that uses stem cells to allow a donated trachea to regenerate tissue and create an organ biologically close to the original, they said Friday.

The 31-year-old Czech and 19-year-old British patients are in good condition and have been released from the hospital in Florence just weeks after the surgery. The British woman was speaking after only three or four days, said Dr. Walter Giovannini, the director of the AOU Careggi hospital where the surgeries took place on July 3 and 13.

The donor windpipe was stripped of all cells until it was just a tube with no organic material. Just before being transplanted, Dr. Macchiarini injected the donor trachea with the stem cells. In the Spanish case, the stem cells were grown on the trachea before the transplant.