(New York, NY–April 6, 2021) - A team of Mount Sinai surgeons has performed the world's first human tracheal transplant—an achievement that has the potential to save the lives of thousands of patients around the world who have tracheal birth defects, untreatable airway diseases, burns, tumors, or severe tracheal damage from intubation, including those who had been hospitalized with COVID-19 and placed on a ventilator. Until now, no long-term treatments existed for these patients with long-segment tracheal damage, and thousands of adults and children have died each year as a result.

The trachea, also known as the windpipe, is an organ that is essential for speaking, breathing, and normal lung function. The trachea connects the larynx to the lungs and plays a critical role in normal lung function, the immune system, and breathing.

Surgeons have been unable to transplant this organ in large part because of the complexity of providing blood flow to the donor trachea, leaving patients with long-segment tracheal disease no option for treatment. Mount Sinai's historic procedure resulted from 30 years of research that focused on how to revascularize, or provide blood flow to the trachea, and understanding the biology of the organ.
The 18-hour procedure took place on Wednesday, January 13, and was led by surgeon-scientist Eric M. Genden, MD, MHCA, FACS, the Isidore Friesner Professor and Chair of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery for Mount Sinai Health System and Professor of Neurosurgery, and Immunology, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The complex surgery involved a team of more than 50 specialists including surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, airway specialists, and residents.

"For the first time, we are able to offer a viable treatment option to patients with life-compromising long-segment tracheal defects, and this development will change the standard of care. It is particularly timely given the growing number of patients with extensive tracheal issues due to COVID-19 intubation. Because of both mechanical ventilation and the nature of the COVID-19-induced airway disease, tracheal airway disease is precipitously increasing, and now we have a treatment. Our trachea transplantation and revascularization protocol is reliable, reproducible, and technically straightforward," says Dr. Genden. "For years, the medical and scientific consensus has been that trachea transplantation could not be done because the organ's complexity made revascularization impossible, and every previous attempt to perform in-human transplantation ended in failure. This surgical achievement is not only the culmination of 30 years of research that began when I was a medical student at Mount Sinai, but was also made possible by the spirit of collaboration that exists at Mount Sinai."

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