Woman's Voice Restored After Larynx Transplant

mvar writes "A woman in the US is able to speak for the first time in 11 years after a pioneering voicebox transplant. Brenda Jensen said the operation, which took place in California, was a miracle which had restored her life. Thirteen days after the surgery she said her first words: 'Good morning, I want to go home.' It is the first time a larynx and windpipe have been transplanted at the same time (image) and only the second time a larynx has ever been transplanted. In October, surgeons at the University of California Davis Medical Center removed the larynx, thyroid gland and 6cm of the trachea from a donor body. In an 18-hour operation, this was transplanted into Ms. Jensen's throat and the team connected it to her blood supply and nerves. Thirteen days later, she was able to speak her first croaky words and is now able to talk easily for long periods of time."

Comments

Human beings are closer to being an idea

[h00manist]

If every part of anyone's body can be replaced, and even completely transfigured and upgraded for various other better parts, what is a human being?

On a more serious note...

[Myji Humoz]

This is a seriously amazing time to live in, as multidisciplinary medical research teams are finding ways to give patients second chances at a relatively normal life. I can't imagine not being able to speak again for the rest of my life, (seriously, try taking a vow of silence for a single day) but I'm glad that the pool of "horribly life changing events without a cure" is getting whittled down bit by bit. Kudos to the research and operations team, and best of luck to the patient.

Re:On a more serious note...

[unkiereamus]

I work in (real) medicine, I'm a fervent believer in it, and I use the phrase "Big Pharma", not to degrade the medical practices, but rather the business decisions.

My favorite example is the drug Zofran, it is the gold standard in chemo anti-nausea meds (with some arguments to be made for pot, but I'll not get into that.). We're talking the chemo patients who haven't been able to keep any food down for a week, and nothing else worked, unless they had particularly good insurance, Zofran was the last option, and it almost always worked...the reason it was the last choice is that it was sold for a bit over a thousand dollars a dose.

When it came off patent, and the generic manufacturers got started on it, would you care to guess how much they were selling it for?

Go ahead, guess.

Nope, you're wrong, about a dollar fifty a dose.

Now, I can have some sympathy for the argument that they need to recover the R&D costs, but due to what amounts to legal maneuvering, they managed to extend their patent for basically 15 years from FDA Approval to it coming off-patent...Did they really need 15 years of about a 70,000% markup?

That's my favorite example, but it's far from the only one.

Re:Ebert?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing short of a brain transplant would help that idiot.

Re:Oh noes!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes HILARIOUS! oh those funny trannies.

seriously people, this is 2011. yes, some people are transgendered, and guess what... they are "real" (insert sex here). and some of the m2f sound perfectly fine. get over your stereotypes dude.

Re:Oh noes!

[the linux geek]

"Real females" vs "trannies." How tactful.

Re:its a good thing but its still creepy

[h4rr4r]

No they would not. For further evidence RTFA.