A larynx transplant carried out on a patient who could regain speech, a first in France
The intervention crowns “ten years of work and research”, underline the Hospices Civils de Lyon (HCL), at the origin of the operation, in a press release released this Tuesday. The first transplant larynx in France was carried out on September 2 and 3 in Lyon on a 49-year-old patient who could thus regain the use of speech, the establishment announced on Tuesday.
“From collection to transplantation, the intervention lasted a total of 27 hours,” according to a press release from HCL. “Extremely complex, it was carried out by a team of ten surgeons”, under the direction of Professor Philippe Céruse, head of the ENT and head and neck surgery department at the Croix-Rousse hospital.
The fourth larynx transplant referenced worldwide
The HCL specified that they waited two months before communicating to ensure the patient’s good state of health. Twenty years after losing the ability to speak, “Karine, 49 years old, is doing well”. Still hospitalized, she could regain speech in the coming months, according to the press release.
According to HCL, this is a first in France and the fourth larynx transplant referenced worldwide. The first successful larynx transplant took place in 1998 in Cleveland, USA, on a man who had lost his vocal cords in a motorcycle accident.
The medical literature only records the following in 2010, in California, on a 52-year-old woman, to whom a thyroid gland and a trachea had been transplanted during the same operation. Polish doctors announced in 2015 that they had successfully transplanted at the same time several throat organs and neck, including the larynx.
Lyon hospitals have already hosted the world’s first transplant of a hand in 1998, and of both hands, in 2000, carried out by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, one of the pioneers of transplantation who died in 2021.
