‘We’re just so grateful, we are delighted they gave Ciarán a chance’

AN 11-year-old boy from the North has become the first child in the world to have pioneering surgery in which his windpipe was rebuilt using his own stem cells.

Ciarán Finn-Lynch underwent the revolutionary trachea transplant in March and was yesterday preparing to return home after the operation was hailed a success.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London took stem cells from the youngster’s bone marrow and injected them into a donor windpipe which had been stripped of its own cells.

They implanted the organ and allowed the stem cells to transform themselves in his own body. By using his cells, doctors could avoid the potential problem of Ciarán’s immune system rejecting the organ.

Great Ormond Street revealed yesterday that four weeks ago, the transplant was considered a success after doctors proved the blood supply had returned to the trachea.

Ciarán’s parents, Colleen and Paul, now hope to take him home for the first time since November. They said the last few months had been a “rollercoaster” and paid tribute to the surgeons who saved their son.

Ciarán was born with a condition called Long Segment Tracheal Stenosis, which leaves sufferers with a very narrow windpipe — in his case just one millimetre across — making breathing incredibly difficult. He underwent major surgery to reconstruct his airways but, at the age of two-and-a-half, a metal stent used to hold his airway open eroded into his aorta, a major artery.

He went through more surgery, including two attempts to rebuild his airway, and finally left hospital after eight months.

Ciarán lived a full and active life until November last year when a stent again started to erode, causing a “massive bleed”.

His mother said: “I’d bought him a new shirt and he came downstairs with it on. The next moment there was blood coming from everywhere.

“There was so much blood I couldn’t give him any breaths, I really thought I had lost him.”

As options ran out, his specialists turned to pioneering stem cell treatment.

The surgery had been tried in Spain in 2008 on mother-of-two Claudia Castillo — the first person to receive a transplant organ created from stem cells — but Ciarán was to be the first child.

While Ms Castillo’s organ was grown outside her body, his was “seeded” and then transplanted into his body, where it was allowed to grow.

Ciarán went under the knife in March, just four weeks after a donor trachea was found in Italy, and now doctors have confirmed his new windpipe is working well.

“We didn’t have much choice when it came to the operation,” Colleen said yesterday. “If Ciarán had one more bleed, I don’t think he would have made it.”

She said they had “100% faith” in the transplant team, led by Professor Martin Elliott.

“When they initially suggested the procedure we agreed to it, knowing it would be the first time it had been tried in a child, as we have 100% faith in them and the work they do.

“Martin Elliott has saved his life so many times, we trust him 100%.

“They were the best people in the world to treat our son.”

She said Ciarán’s recovery had been “up and down” but he kept his spirits up.

“Because it’s so new, nobody knows what’s ahead or how long his full recovery is going to be, but we are on the right road now,” she said.

“We’re just so grateful, we are delighted they gave Ciarán a chance; we’ve got our boy back.”

Ciarán, who turned 11 last month, is looking forward to going home and is likely to return to school in September.

A keen drummer, he is most excited about being able to play in his band again, and even started practising with a lesson in the hospital’s intensive care unit recently.

He was also kept smiling with a visit from comedy star Alan Carr, he said.

Prof Elliott said the transplant team was “delighted” Ciarán could go home.

“He is a wonderful boy who has become a great friend to us all, and he and his infinitely patient family have charmed us all,” he said.

“Ciarán has become our local iPad expert and we will miss his advice.

“His recovery has been complicated, as one might expect for a new procedure, and we have kept him under close surveillance, hence the length of time he has been here.

“It is wonderful to see him active, smiling and breathing normally. We are very proud of him.”

“The treatment offers hope to many whose major airways were previously considered untreatable or irreplaceable,” Prof Elliott added.