Medical first: Stem cells used for windpipe transplant

William Atkins
Thursday, 20 November 2008 19:40

Science - Biology

European surgeons performed a pioneering first in medicine: The first human trachea (windpipe) transplant that used the patient’s own stem cells to prepare the trachea for transplantation.


Lead by Spanish surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, the operation was performed at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, Spain.

Performed in June 2008, the summary of the pre-work and the transplant operation was published online on Wednesday, November 19, 2008, in the journal The Lancet.

The article called “Clinical transplantation of a tissue-engineered airway” was authored by doctors from Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

The medical team performed the operation on a 30-year-old woman (Claudia Castillo) with tuberculosis (end-stage bronchomalacia).

Her left bronchus (tube connecting the trachea to the left lung) had collapsed due to her medical condition and, consequently, she had severe shortness of breath and damage to her airway.

A trachea was procured from a 51-year-old organ donor who had died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Its cells and antigens were removed and replaced with healthy cells from the patient’s right airway, which had been treated to rebuild themselves on the trachea.

Page two describes the importance of the transplant.