Belgian doctors give woman a new windpipe

For about eight months, she took drugs to stop her immune system from rejecting the new organ. Though some of the tissue from the windpipe's male donor remains, enough of De Croock's own tissue now lines the organ that she no longer needs anti-rejection medicines.

Patrick Warnke, a tissue-engineering expert at Bond University in Australia not linked to De Croock's case, said it was the first time a donor organ as large as the trachea was nurtured inside the recipient's own body before being transplanted.

"This shows us that we may one day be able to use patients' own bodies as bioreactors to grow their own tissue," he said.

Warnke thought it might be possible to grow parts of organs, like a lung lobe, within patients themselves in the future. Warnke said he has grown parts of a jaw using muscle in a patient's back.

Last year, European doctors announced they had lined a donor windpipe with tissue grown from their patient's stem cells, thus eliminating the use for immune-suppressing drugs. Only a handful of windpipe transplants have been performed.

Since operating on De Croock, Delaere and colleagues performed a similar transplant on an 18-year-old man, and two other patients are being readied for the treatment.

Dr. Eric Genden of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, who has also performed a windpipe transplant, said the Belgian approach was "intellectually interesting," but would probably not revolutionize how doctors treat patients. He said the technique was too complex and labor-intensive to be easily replicated by other doctors.

For De Croock, the surgery has had a huge impact.

"Now I'm very happy. I realize how my life has completely changed," she said. "I can actually do what I want."

Every six months, she has a scan to check her new windpipe, but doesn't have to take any medicines or treatment. Still, doctors are wary of De Croock exerting too much pressure on the windpipe, and she has some limitations when she exercises.

"Her voice is excellent, and her breathing is normal," Delaere said. "I don't think she could run a marathon, but she is doing well."

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