France: successful surgery of the first tracheal transplants

A group of French surgeons said they had successfully performed the first tracheal transplants in patients with some incurable cancer so far. These are the first cases in the world to replace the trachea with a section of aorta.

According to Professor Alain Wurtz, who led the surgeon group at Lille University Hospital (CHRU), this severe surgery was performed in four times from March 2005 in three men and one woman in aged from 20 to 46.

The operation lasted 9 to 14 hours to remove almost all of the trachea and replaced with a similarly sized aorta from a person in prolonged coma.

The surgeons then put a silicone tube inside the aorta to prevent the soft aorta from breaking each time. They finally used the patient's own chest muscles to surround the windpipe to protect it and allow vascular allocation.

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