This groundbreaking surgery could end up helping people who damaged their trachea while being on a ventilator for COVID-19.
The following written content by Korin Miller
A woman in New York City has a new windpipe after undergoing the world’s first trachea transplant.
Sonia Sein’s vocal cords and trachea were damaged and scarred when she was intubated after having a life-threatening asthma attack six years ago. The trachea is part of your airway system; it carries air into your lungs and then brings carbon dioxide out. Also called a windpipe, the trachea connects the larynx (voice box) to the lungs and is important for normal lung function, the immune system, and breathing.
Sein, 57, had several medical procedures to try to fix the issue, and she was left with a temporary hole in her throat that she needed to cover to be able to speak. “I think I lived more in the hospital than I did at home,” she told Good Morning America. “I wasn’t able to do running, going to the beach, laughing, dancing.” Sein said she also lived in fear that she would suffocate in her sleep due to her health condition.
Sein ended up connecting with Eric Genden, MD, a head and neck surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, who developed a tracheal transplant procedure—which had never been done before. Sein said she received a call in January that the medical staff had found a donor.
On January 13, Sein underwent an 18-hour procedure, according to a press release from Mount Sinai. The surgery, which Mount Sinai described as “complex,” required more than 50 specialists to perform.
During the procedure, the surgical team removed the donor trachea and associated blood vessels and reconstructing it inside Sein from her lungs to her larynx. They also used a portion of Sein’s esophagus and thyroid to help provide blood supply to the new trachea. Read more from Health
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