Toddler youngest in world to get lab-made windpipe

CHICAGO: A 2-year-old born without a windpipe now has a new one grown from her own stem cells.
She’s the youngest patient in the world to benefit from the experimental treatment.
Hannah Warren had been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in 2010 in South Korea. Until the operation three weeks ago in Peoria, Illinois, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul. Doctors there told her parents there was no hope and they expected her to die.
Doctors in Illinois announced yesterday that the little girl is recovering and will likely lead a normal life.
Hannah is the first child to receive a tissue-engineered trachea devoid of any donor cells, according to the Peoria, Ill.-based hospital. Lead surgeon Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, professor of regenerative surgery at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, said the transplant crosses frontiers by eliminating the need for a human donor and a lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs.
“The most amazing thing, which for a little girl is a miracle, is that this transplant has not only saved her life, but it will eventually enable her to eat, drink and swallow, even talk, just like any other normal child,” Macchiarini said in a statement. “She will go from being a virtual prisoner in a hospital bed to running around and playing with her sister and enjoying a normal life, which is a beautiful thing.”
Hannah is still recovering with the support of pulmonologists, respiratory therapists and speech therapists, according to a hospital statement.
“Words cannot express our thanks to everyone who has helped make this dream a reality,” said Canadian-born Darryl Warren, who was accompanied to the United States by his Korean wife, Young-Mi, and their 4-year-old daughter, Dana. “We know one day soon we will get to make that trip home.”