First Reconstructed Esophagus on a Young Man Reported to Be a Success

There have been cases where animal organs are used to replace defective human organs. However, it is rare for health experts to make something from scratch and use it as a patient's organ. American doctors have made a new esophagus for a paralyzed young man with the help of donated skin tissue and metal stents.

Science Daily has recently reported that the first case of a human patient who has a severely damaged esophagus was reconstructed using FDA approved stents and skin tissue. It was discovered that after 7 years of the reconstruction and 4 years of the stent being removed, the patient still continues to eat normally and maintain his weight without having any problems in swallowing.

The 24-year-old man was paralyzed in a car crash 7 years ago, and doctors had a difficult time to repair his esophagus. In normal cases, they would attempt to make one using a tube from the patient's digestive system, however that was not possible in the man's case since he suffered extensive injuries.

"It's quite remarkable what they were able to do," said Dr. Simon Hoerstrup, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Zurich, who had no connection to the research. He explained the result saying that it is possible for the human body to regrow certain organs provided basic structure is implanted, medicalxpress.com reported.

Professor Kulwinder Dua from the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA, and colleagues explained that they used FDA approved metal stents as a scaffold to maintain the shape of the esophagus and connect the large defect. A regenerative tissue matrix from donated human skin was then used to rebuild a full-thickness 5cm defect in the patient's esophagus. They used an endoscope to place self-expanding stents. They then sprayed with a platelet-rich plasma gel the tissue matrix from the patient's own blood to deliver high concentrations of growth. These factors don't only stimulate growth, but also attract stem cells to stimulate healing and regeneration.

According to Professor Dua, "This is a first in human operation and one that we undertook as a life-saving measure once we had exhausted all other options available to us and the patient. The use of this procedure in routine clinical care is still a long way off as it requires rigorous assessment in large animal studies and phase 1 and 2 clinical trials."

He added saying that the approach they used different because they used commercially available products which have already been approved by the FDA for use in the human body that's why it didn't require complex tissue engineering.