Breakthrough: Woman Receives Windpipe Built From Her Stem Cells

A woman has become the world's first recipient of windpipe tissue constructed from a combination of donated tissue and her own cells. Stem cells harvested from the woman's bone marrow were used to populate a stripped-down section of windpipe received from a donor, which was then transplanted into her body:

The transplant operation was performed on the patient, Claudia Castillo, in June in Barcelona, Spain, to alleviate an acute shortage of breath caused by a failing airway following severe tuberculosis. After a severe collapse of her left lung in March, she needed regular hospital visits to clear her airways and was unable to take care of her children.

According to her doctors, the only conventional option remaining was a major operation to remove her left lung which carries a risk of complications and a high mortality rate.

We are terribly excited by these results,” said Prof. Paolo Macchiarini of the University of Barcelona, who performed the operation. “Just four days after transplantation the graft was almost indistinguishable from adjacent normal bronchi.” Two months after the surgery, lung function tests on Ms. Castillo “were all at the better end of the normal range for a young woman.”

The transplant showed “the very real potential for adult stem cells and tissue engineering to radically improve their ability to treat patients with serious diseases. We believe this success has proved that we are on the verge of a new age in surgical care.”