Washington, May 1 (ANI): Two-year-old Hannah Warren lived her whole life in an intensive care unit with a breathing tube, as she was born without a windpipe and has been unable to talk, swallow, or eat on her own.
Her parents, Darryl and Young-mi Warren were told Hannah would not live past age six.
Her only hope was an artificial windpipe; an experimental device which had been tried in only five other patients, none in the United States, and none of them children.
Her medical team custom-designed a tube using tiny plastic fibers, CBS News reported.
It was then bathed in stem cells taken from Hannah's bone marrow to promote tissue growth.
In a nine-hour surgery on April 9, the bio-engineered windpipe was placed inside Hannah.
When she woke up after the operation she was breathing on her own for the first time in her life.
Three weeks after the surgery, she's active and able to even taste her first lollipop.
Her doctors believe in a few months, she will be able to go home for the first time and may even be able to talk.
Since the device is made from her own cells, there is little danger of Hannah's body rejecting it.
And what makes this technology so exciting is the promise of being able to manufacture organs in a matter of weeks without waiting for a donor. (ANI)
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