First Allogenic Tracheal Transplantation in Man 40 years ago – General Information

In the 50th and 60th of the last century many groups worked on tracheal allotransplantation in several animal models. All transplantations failed due to local necrosis or rejections after several days or weeks. At that time cytotoxic antibodies or other immunological parameters were not detected. In November 1978 the first successful tracheal allotransplantation was performed by Rose and Sesterhenn in the Dept. ORL, Head & Neck surgery at the University Hospital of Cologne/Germany. Basic immunologic studies and preliminary work on 338 tracheal transplantations in Lewis-rats were performed by Klaus Sesterhenn in the 1970th. Then, the first successful tracheal allogenic transplantation in man was done in November 1978 in a 19 yo man with a severe tracheal stenosis after long-term intubation. The trachea was removed from the donor while blood circulation persisted. Iscemia was 160 min before implantation of the graft into a pocket of the right sternocleidomastoid muscle. Definitve transplantation followed on Dec, 6th 1978. In this contribution detailed information on the perioperative circumstances are presented by a contemporary witness.

Publication History

Publication Date:
23 April 2019 (online)