PARIS, Nov 24, 2011 (AFP) - The word's first artificial windpipe transplant has been such a success that a second operation has been carried out and a third is being planned, The Lancet reported on Thursday.
Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a 36-year-old Eritrean, is doing well after undergoing the ground-breaking operation in Stockholm in June, it said.
Beyene, a post-graduate geology student currently living in Reykjavik, Iceland, had had his trachea removed because of cancer.
It was replaced in a 12-hour operation on June 9 with a synthetic "scaffold" covered with his own stem cells, or precursor cells of windpipe tissue.
"The patient has been doing great for the last four months and has been able to live a normal life," the British journal quoted Tomas Gudbjartsson, a professor at Landspitali University Hospital and University of Iceland in Reykjavik, as saying.
"For the last two months he has been able to focus on his studies and the plan is that he will defend his thesis at the end of this year."
The operation, led by Professor Paolo Macchiarini of Stockholm's Karolinska University Hospital, entailed using 3-D imaging to scan Beyene and then building a glass model of the afflicted section of his windpipe.
The glass was used to shape the artificial scaffold, which was then seeded with stemcells.
Macchiarini has just carried out his second transplant, on a 30-year-old man from Maryland, United States, who also had cancer of the trachea. The scaffold was made from nanofibres and thus "represents a further advance," the Journal quoted Macchiarini as saying.
His team is now hoping to treat a 13-month-old South Korean infant with the same technique.
"We will continue to improve the regenerative medicine approaches for transplanting the windpipe and extend it to the lungs, heart, and oesophagus," said Macchiarini.
It marks a step forward in regenerative medicine, as the organ is tailor-made to the patient, he said.
In addition, artificial organs do not require the long waiting time that usually happens in human donation.
As the stem cells come from the patient himself, this reduces risk of attack by the immune system, which is the case for donated organs whose rejection has to be combatted by taking powerful immunosuppressive drugs.
<한글기사>
줄기세포로 인공장기만들어 이식..성공적
수술팀, 13개월 한국인 유아 수술 계획
지난 6월 세계에서 처음으로 인공 기관(氣管)을 이식받은 환자가 평범한 생활이 가능할 정도로 회복 상태가 좋은 것으로 보고됐다.
영국의 의학 전문지 '랜싯(Lancet)'은 당시 스웨덴에서 수술을 받은 안데마리암 테클레센벳(36)이 4개월간 회복 기간을 거쳐 원래의 상태를 되찾고 있다고 24일 소개했다.
에리트레아 출신 남성으로 지질학 전공 대학원생인 테클레센벳은 연말에는 학위논문을 끝마칠 수 있을 정도로 상태가 좋다고 의료진은 설명했다.
종양으로 기관을 제거한 그는 스톡홀름 카롤린스카 대학병원에서 자신의 줄기세포를 이용한 인공 기관을 이식받고자 12시간 동안 수술대에 올랐다.
이 병원의 기관 이식 전문의인 파올로 마키아리니는 나노섬유로 만들어 좀 더 발전시킨 인공 기관을 미국 남성(30)에게 이식하는 두번째 수술을 최근 마쳤다.
마키아리니의 수술팀은 한국의 13개월 된 유아에게 세 번째로 같은 수술을 집도할 계획이다.
그는 "이식을 통한 재생의학을 폐와 심장, 식도 등으로 확대해 나가겠다"고 말했다.
