| Transplantation gave voice back |
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 For eleven years, Brenda Jensen spoke with an electronic voice. Now she has her voice back. A Swedish surgeon was among the doctors who performed the complicated transplant. Complications after a previous operation led to 52-year-old Brenda Jensen, U.S., lost the ability to breathe and speak normally. Since then she's only able to speak through a hand-held electronic device that provides a robotic voice. But it is no longer valid. An international expert surgical team has given her a human voice back. Late last fall, she got a new larynx, trachea and thyroid glands transplanted from a road accident. Yesterday she met the press and the transplant team to talk about the successful outcome. - This operation is a miracle, "said Brenda Jensen. I am so grateful and just talk, talk and talk. To succeed in the complicated transplant surgeons use the latest surgical and rehabilitation techniques, - Larynx is an incredibly complex organ with intricate nerves and muscles that allow us to speak and breathe, "Says Gregory Farwell, an associate professor at UC Davis Medical Center and director of surgery for the transplant. Geroge Farwell also expressed his admiration over Brenda Jensen, who was willing to accept the challenges that it means to undergo the transplant, and also carry out the work that was necessary in order to use its new larynx. With the 18-hour operation was Paolo Macchiarini from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. - To restore the nerves and blood vessels connecting again in and around the larynx and trachea, and get it to work, sat down really to the test "says Paolo Macchiarini, which in 2008 led the world's first transplant of a trachea that have been cultivated by tissue engineering. - It is not only highly relevant for future transplants, but provides us with insights that may one day lead to us to use stem cells to repair the larynx and surrounding tissues in the throat. |
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