First child stem cell trachea transplant a success

An 11-year old Irish boy has become the world’s first child to receive a transplant of a new trachea grown from his own stem cells, the BBC has reported.

Ciaran Finn-Lynch was discharged from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London last week after doctors confirmed that the blood supply had returned to the trachea following groundbreaking surgery in March.

Doctors took stem cells from the young boy’s bone marrow and injected them into a donor windpipe. They then implanted the organ and allowed the stem cells to transform themselves in his own body. By using his own stem cells doctors were able to remove the risk of Ciaran’s body rejecting the organ.

Ciaran was born with a condition known as Long Segment Tracheal Stenosis, which leaves sufferers with a very narrow windpipe. The success of the operation is expected to lead to improved treatments for the disease in children.

Ciaran is only the second person in the world to benefit from this procedure, and the first child. In 2008 Spanish doctors performed the operation on Columbian mother-of-two Claudia Castillo.