A young girl born without a trachea underwent a windpipe transplant procedure almost a month ago and is now able to breathe on her own.
Hannah Warren, 2, has been receiving treatment in the intensive care unit since she was born, because without a trachea, she needed a breathing tube to connect her mouth to her lungs.
Now, thanks to a transplant constructed from plastic fibers and her own stem calls, the young girl is mostly breathing on her own and responding to doctors and nurses.
Hannah's transplant marked the sixth procedure of this kind performed in the world, but she is the youngest patient to have this kind of transplant and the first patient to undergo the surgery in the U.S.
The procedure, innovated by Dr. Paolo Macchiarini from the Advanced Center for Translational Regenerative Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an experimental operation for patients with a weak prognosis.
The nine-hour surgery was performed at the Children's Hospital of Illinois on Apr. 9 following the construction of a windpipe made from Hannah's bone marrow stem cells. The cells were placed over plastic fibers that were then formed into a tubular shape.
Hannah's condition is rare and occurs in only about 1 in 50,000 children worldwide, but it is also fatal in 99 percent of cases, TIME Healthland reports.
Macchiarini plans to conduct more clinical trials to better determine the risks and benefits associated with the procedure.
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