Woman Fitted With New Windpipe

Boston (DbTechNo) - In a remarkable medical breakthrough Belgian doctors have fitted a woman with a new windpipe.

The woman, Linda De Croock was living with a severely damaged windpipe following a near fatal car crash up until the successful surgery that is.

“Life before my transplant was becoming less livable all the time, with continual pain and jabbing and pricking in my throat and windpipe,” the 54-year-old Belgian told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The procedure was quite complex and involved many steps.

First, the windpipe of a dead man was removed and implanted into Linda’s arm so it could grow new cell tissue.

Once the sufficient tissue had been grown, the windpipe was inserted into Linda’s throat.

The procedure took 10 months to complete, from when the windpipe was installed into Linda’s arm up until it could be implanted into her throat.

Read more about this fascinating surgery in the New England Journal of Medicine.