Girl gets new vein grown from her stem cells

A TEN-YEAR-OLD girl has had a vein transplant using a blood vessel grown from her own stem cells, in a world first for tissue engineering.

It is hoped the same technique can soon be used for at-risk patients facing bypass surgery on their hearts.

The girl had a blocked vein – the hepatic portal vein – which drains blood from the gut and spleen to the liver. Without treatment, she faced serious complications, including internal bleeding, an enlarged spleen and even death.

Traditionally, bypass surgery has been used to restore portal blood flow, using sections of vein taken from other parts of the body. This can cause other problems and is not always successful.

The new technique involved growing a new section of portal vein from the girl’s own bone marrow stem cells.

First, a 9cm segment of groin vein was taken from a deceased donor and stripped of cellular tissue, leaving a tubular protein “scaffold”.

Maturing stem cells were “seeded” into the scaffold, which two weeks later was implanted into the girl’s body.

Normal blood flow was restored, but after a year the graft had to be lengthened with another piece of vein made from stem cells.

The girl has remained well since and even managed to take part in gymnastics, the Swedish team reported in the latest online edition of The Lancet medical journal.

The researchers, led Professor Suchitra Sumitran-Holdgersson from the University of Gothenburg, wrote: “The new stem cells-derived graft resulted not only in good blood flow rates and normal laboratory test values, but also in strikingly improved quality of life for the patient.”

As the graft was built from the girl’s own cells, it was accepted by her immune system, meaning she did not require drug therapy to prevent rejection.