Your Health: First human trachea transplant a medical milestone
LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - It’s a medical milestone that has the potential to save thousands of people with birth defects, cancer, or injury to their windpipes from COVID-19. A team of surgeons in New York successfully transplanted a human trachea into a critically ill patient.
One year later, that patient is surviving and thriving, and now wants others with badly damaged windpipes to know they may have a life-saving option
57-year-old Sonia Sein takes nothing for granted, including daily walks through her neighborhood with her niece, Monique. Sein had a severe asthma attack in 2014 and had to have several emergency intubations to save her life.
“They kept removing it to see if I can breathe on my own and them doing that, they damaged the trachea,” Sein said. She had to breathe through a surgical hole in her neck, and still has the opening there. “I have a plug that I have to push in,” she said. “It holds the air so I can talk.”
For years, Sein was in constant danger of having her trachea collapse and then suffocating. Until a medical breakthrough happened.
Eric Genden is a Medical Doctor from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“The trachea is a little bit like the Rodney Dangerfield of organs; It never gets much respect,” Genden said. “It looks like a tube, but it’s actually a very complex organ system.”
Dr. Genden says the difficulty with human transplantation is to re-establishing blood flow.
“We’re using a high-powered microscope, hooking up these little blood vessels, using a suture that’s a thinner than a human hair. It’s actually difficult to see without a microscope,” Genden said.
Sein knew there were serious risks involved with transplantation but she also knew she was running out of time. “I didn’t know what would happen,” she said. “I told him all I want is five minutes to be able to take that air in normally.”
Last January, in an 18-hour long surgery, doctors removed Sein’s damaged trachea and replaced it with a donor organ and blood vessels. Sein is still recovering but can play with her grandkids and stroll with her niece. She wants her survival story to inspire others.
She said, “I want people to see that just because there’s a setback in your life, doesn’t stops. You can still get up and do whatever you want, but you’ll get there.”
Sein also wants to continue to get stronger so she can return to her job as a social worker.
Doctors hope in the future that they will be able to close the hole in her neck, which would allow her to do one activity she says she’s missed over the past seven years.
She said she really wants to go to the beach to go swimming.
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