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Vein Grown From Her Own Stem Cells Saves 10-Year-Old

Posted by samzenpus on from the vat-kiddies dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with a story about a milestone in stem cell medicine. "A ten year old girl became the first person in the world to get a major blood vessel replaced by one grown using her own stem cells. The 10-year-old from Sweden had a blockage of a vein from her liver. The doctors decided to give her a new vein instead of a liver transplant or giving her a vein from her own body, Associated Press reported. The team from University of Gothenburg first took 9 cm vein segment from a dead man and stripped all living cells from it, leaving behind only a protein structure. They later reconstructed the vein by using cells from the girl's own bone marrow. The new graft was then put in the girl's body two weeks later."

2 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is it necessary the vien come from a dead human by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's actually not as amazing as it seems... adult stem cells* have been used quite extensively, and for quite awhile. It also has the added advantage of compatibility.

    * yes she's a kid, but they still call 'em adult cells, to distinguish them from the embryonic ones.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  2. This isn't that big of a deal at all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    (I'm a liver transplant surgeon).

    They could have done this procedure with cadaver iliac vein without the fancy bioprocessing, without immunosuppression. I've done that operation. Allograft vessels and other tissue grafts have been available for years. It's an interesting idea to see if the autologous endothelial cells improve patency, but the procedure itself is nothing remotely newsworthy. I can't believe Lancet accepted the statement that this processing avoided the need for liver transplantation.

    Also, decellularized bovine carotid grafts have also been used in human surgery for many years, usually for dialysis access surgery. The trade name is Artegraft, and I think they are marketed by Johnson and Johnson, but not sure. I don't know if bovine carotid has ever been used for a meso-rex shunt (what this kid had - an uncommon procedure), but they have been used many thousands of times for other vascular surgery.