Belgian doctors give injured woman a new windpipe

LONDON — A car accident smashed Linda De Crook windpipe and she lived with constant pain for more than a quarter of a century.

Today, she has been implanted a new windpipe. Surgeons implanted the windpipe into her arm from a dead man. Implanted windpipe grew new tissue before being transplanted into her throat. First doctors trained her body to accept donor tissue. This could acquiesce new methods of nurturing organs within patients, experts say.

The technique echoes like science fiction, her life has transformed, De Crook says. She will no longer take anti-rejection drugs.

“My life became less livable all the time before my transplant, with persistent pain and jabbing as well as pricking in my throat and windpipe,” the 54-year-old Belgian told the newspaper in a telephone interview.

The donor windpipe was implanted by Doctors at Belgium’s University Hospital Leuven, in De Croock’s arm as a first step. Doctors trained  her body to accept the organ and to restart its blood supply.

After 10 months of implantation, when enough tissue had grown around it, doctors let her stop taking the drugs and then the windpipe was transferred to its proper place.

“This is a major step forward for trachea transplantation,” said Dr. Pierre Delaere, the surgeon who led the team that treated De Croock.

De Croock lived with the pain and discomfort for many years. She searched for doctors who might be able to help her and found Delaere on the Internet.

“I had always wondered, ‘So many things are possible, why not a new windpipe?'” De Croock said.

This is a successful story of health care and which is the new era in medical science. This implantation was not easy task but doctors team at Belgium’s University Hospital Leuven made it possible.