Originally published October 12 2005
Tracheal repair technique pioneered at the Children's Hospital of Boston
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Using cells from amniotic fluid, researchers led by Dario Fauza, MD, have developed a technique for repairing the damaged trachea of lambs while still in the womb.
The tracheal repair technique is one of several tissue-engineering approaches pioneered at Children's that use the fetus's own cells, drawn from the amniotic fluid that surrounds it, to create patches to fix birth defects -- in this case, even before birth.
Pediatric surgeon Dario Fauza, MD, who led the study, will present the team's work on OOctober 8 at the American Academy of Pediatrics annual conference in Washington, DC.
Amniotic fluid is easily collected during pregnancy and contains unspecialized cells, known as mesenchymal stem cells, that can make many of the tissues needed to perform repairs, Fauza says.
While tracheal defects are rare, they're life-threatening: babies born with incomplete, malformed or missing tracheas cannot breathe and must immediately go on heart-lung bypass, which can cause neurologic and other complications.
Working with sheep, considered a good model for humans (lambs grow quickly and are similar in size to human babies), Fauza's team obtained a small quantity of amniotic fluid and isolated mesenchymal stem cells.
While many congenital defects can be safely repaired after birth, Fauza's goal is to fix tracheal defects in utero.
Once the baby is born, tracheal surgery requires that the baby be intubated and ventilated long after the operation while the trachea heals; this can lead to many complications, including failure of the repair.
Since the tissue-engineered grafts are made from the baby's own cells, taken before birth, there would be no risk of the immune system rejecting the tissues, and since fetal cells are immature and not fully specialized, they can be used to generate a variety of tissues.
Currently, most tissue engineers use adult cells to create their lab-grown tissues.
Last year, Fauza reported using similar techniques in newborn lambs to repair congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), or a hole in the diaphragm that separates the lungs from the visceral organs.
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