Synthetic windpipe is surgical breakthrough

SURGEONS have carried out the world's first transplant involving a synthetic organ.

Scientists in London created the artificial windpipe using a plastic-like material which was then coated with the patient's own stem cells.

Because the operation, carried out in Sweden, does not require a donor, it means there is no risk of the organ being rejected.

Last night, surgeons said the 36-year-old patient, who had cancer, was doing well a month after the operation took place.

The surgery was led by Spanish expert Professor Paolo Macchiarini, and carried out at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm.

He has already led ten other windpipe transplants, including the first tissue-engineered tracheal transplant in 2008 on Spaniard Claudia Costillo, 30.

But all these previous transplants required donor organs to act as a scaffold, with the patients' own stem cells grafted on.

The latest surgery is the first to use a synthetic material as the main structure of the organ.

This was developed by Professor Alexander Seifalian from University College London.