The world's first simultaneous transplantation of trachea and bronchi
The world's first tracheal and bronchial transplantation was performed at the N.N. Blokhin Russian Research Medical Center
Instead of the trachea and bronchi affected by the tumor, a bioimplant grown using a special technology using the patient's own cells was used for the first time in the world.
Tatiana Titova, Channel One
(published on the website of the RSC)
Thousands of people suffering from oncological diseases got a chance to recoverAnd all thanks to a new domestic development.
Our doctors transplanted the patient at once – both the trachea and the bronchi. No one has ever succeeded before them. It took a decade to create a bioimplant, and the result exceeded all expectations.
To the light breathing of this patient, all the attention is focused so far only by the doctors of the Russian oncological center.Blokhina – they have not yet had time to share with anyone that they have made a breakthrough. For the first time in the world, both the trachea and bronchi affected by cancer were transplanted in this clinic. This happened less than 2 weeks ago, and the patient Tatiana Vokhmyanina is already talking with might and main and even tells how she refuses an oxygen mask.
"I couldn't do without it before, but now I'm taking it off, I can walk around, take a walk, put myself in order," says Tatiana Vokhmyanina.
Such patients used to breathe through tubes for the rest of their days, temporarily taming the disease with radiation or chemotherapy. The tumor is located where it was impossible to operate – in the trachea and bronchi. This time, such a complex and long section of the respiratory tract was removed and an implant was placed in its place.
This operation brought together the whole color of Russian oncology – 2 professors and one academician bent over the surgical table, and it lasted 3 hours. The situation demanded it. The patient teetered on the brink of life and death several times, and the doctors worked in the most difficult technical conditions.
The most difficult task faced by resuscitators was to force a person to breathe through an organ that is essentially being removed. Artificial ventilation tubes were brought immediately to the lungs and held almost with their hands while surgeons worked with jeweler's precision – if they did not get at least a millimeter, the inflammatory process would begin.
"The operation took place on a working heart, all structures are moving, and, of course, the technical conditions are very difficult, not to mention the illumination, because at a great depth," says Mikhail Davydov, Director General of the Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Center.
But the main sensation is not even in how they transplanted, but in what. Almost 10 years have been going to this sensation in the laboratories of the oncological center, a bioimplant was being prepared – this is a trachea and bronchial structure, but not artificially created, but donated. These are usually rejected by the patient's immune system, and the most difficult thing is to make them invisible. They did, for this they destroyed the native protein and implanted the patient's cells.
"Stem cells are taken from the bone marrow and mesenchymal cells are obtained from them, which will cover the outer surface of the trachea," explains Mikhail Kiselevsky, head of the laboratory of Cellular Immunity at the Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Center.
This technology has already been patented and is being prepared to be presented to the world medical community. By the way, it also took a step forward: in France, the bronchi were transplanted, in Moscow – the trachea, but at the Blokhin cancer center, colleagues were overtaken by 2 steps, simultaneously transplanting both, and they were already thinking about the third – they want to create a transplant bank here. There are thousands of patients in Russia who need them, and this will give them a chance, perhaps the only one, to be completely cured of cancer.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru16.03.2011