10-Year-Old Boy Receives Stem Cell Surgery
A 10-year-old boy who has not been named went through a stem cell surgery to rebuild the trachea or windpipe at London’s Great Ormond Street children’s hospital. The boy has received a donor windpipe deprived of its cells and injected with the boy’s own cells. Over the following month, the physicians believe the stem cells from the boy’s bone marrow will differentiate into windpipe cells. If successful, the procedure will revolutionize the regenerative medicine.
The boy was born with long segment tracheal stenosis, a life-threatening condition which is characterized by very small windpipe. He went through different treatments but his condition worsened in November when his doctors turned to Professor Paolo Macchiarini from the Careggi University Hospital in Florence. In 2008, Paolo Macchiarini performed a surgery in Spain on 30-year-old Claudia Castillo who was the first person to be implanted with an organ produced from stem cells. Unlike in Claudia Castillo’s case who received an organ grown from tissue outside her body, the tissue of the 10-year-old boy in London will be grown inside his body which is said to be far less complicated.
The boy who is the first child to receive such treatment is said to recovering and feeling very well. Professor Martin Elliott, cardiothoracic surgeon and director of tracheal services at London’s Great Ormond Street children’s hospital also said that the boy is breathing completely for himself and speaking. The doctors believe that the organ will not be rejected by the immune system like in case of traditional transplants because the cells originate from the boy’s own tissue. Professor Martin Birchall from the University College London says that further clinical studies are required to prove that the procedure worked and if it did it may enable transplantation of other organs such as esophagus and larynx in hospitals all over the globe.
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