In a Tissue-Engineering First, Doctors Think the Boy's New Windpipe Could Grow
July 25, 2012 -- Ciaran Finn-Lynch is an accidental medical pioneer. With his life in danger, doctors used the 13-year-old's own stem cells to grow him a new windpipe, and they did it inside his body -- a feat that's never been accomplished before.
"It's a really heroic story," says Harald C. Ott, MD, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "They really saved this kid's life."
Ott worked out some of the science that made the procedure possible but was not directly involved in Ciaran's treatment.
Two years after the surgery, doctors say Ciaran (pronounced KEER-an) is living the life of a normal teen. He's grown more than 4 inches and gone back to school. Best of all, he has no need for an expensive and complicated regimen of anti-rejection drugs.
What doctors are learning from his case could help thousands of children born each year with life-threatening birth defects.
Ciaran was born with a windpipe so small and deformed that it caused his lungs to collapse.
Doctors managed to hold his airway open using metal tubes. But eventually the tubes eroded into his aorta, the large vessel that carries blood out of the heart. He was rushed to the hospital with massive bleeding. Twice.
The second time, the bleeding stopped on its own. That gave his doctors a small window of time to look for other options.
Two years earlier, scientists had devised a new way to create organs using a patient's own stem cells. Though the technique had only been tried in adults, they thought the same method might work for Ciaran.
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