Hello all,
I know I have been keeping an extremely low profile as I am sorry ( I am always apologising!), I would prefer getting answers then crying on anyone shoulder, and if I do not know something its best to keep quiet. No disrespect to any one but no apologies if any anyone who feels I am targetting anyone or is offened by seeing or reading this post.

I thought this was a wonderful article and would be a major help for a lot of people. I have asked for more information - however will pass that on as fast as I receive the replies.

With regards to all.
Ananth



Windpipe transplant with stem cells
19 Nov 2008, 1034 hrs IST, AP

Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text: Eccerpts from The Times of India 21. November. www.timesof india.co/HelthSci/wind-transplant_with_stemcells/articleshow/3731197cms
LONDON: Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs. ( Watch Claudia Castillo got a tailormade trachea, using a donor windpipe and her own stem cells. (Agencies)
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"This technique has great promise," said Dr Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done.

If successful, the procedure could become a new standard of treatment, said Genden, who was not involved in the research. The results were published today online in the medical journal, The Lancet.

The transplant was given to Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old Colombian mother of two living in Barcelona, suffered from tuberculosis for years. After a severe collapse of her left lung in March, Castillo needed regular hospital visits to clear her airways and was unable to take care of her children.

Doctors initially thought the only solution was to remove the entire left lung. But Dr Paolo Macchiarini, head of thoracic surgery at Barcelona's Hospital Clinic, proposed a windpipe transplant instead.

Once doctors had a donor windpipe, scientists at Italy's University of Padua stripped off all its cells, leaving only a tube of connective tissue.

Meanwhile, doctors at the University of Bristol took a sample of Castillo's bone marrow from her hip. They used the bone marrow's stem cells to create millions of cartilage and tissue cells to cover and line the windpipe

Hi Ananth, nice to hear from you. How's it going. Hagg.

Hi Ananth and Hagg!

I saw that story on the news the other night, and all I could think was WOW! Ain't it amazing what they can do!?

Hope you're both well. It's a beautiful but cold day here in Ypsilanti.

Julia

Hi Julia, it's cold damp and miserable here in southern England. But on the bright side, at least Christmas is getting nearer though . Hagg.

I also read this article with great interest.

Another thing which hit the news here was that the whole operation was thrown into jeopardy by a UK losw cost airline who refused to allow the package containing the cells on their flight.

The guy who was accompanying them knew a surgeon who was also a pilot, and they got them to Barcelona in his plane - thus saving the day.

Think of the potential of this procedure - amazing.