UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG, GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN. The world’s first biologically tissue-engineered vein grown from the patient’s own stem cells made vein transplant possible. This alternative method will help patients with unhealthy veins to avoid synthetic grafts that are highly prone to blockages and clots. They do not even need life-long immunosuppressive treatment.

The 10-year old girl has a portal vein obstruction that made her life miserable. The hepatic portal vein drains blood from the spleen and gut into the liver. Since she had blockages, it affected her vitality and growth. If not treated, she can have serious complications like developmental retardation, enlarged spleen, lethal variceal bleeding and even death.

Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson and her colleagues from the University of Gothenburg obtained a 9cm section of the iliac (groin) vein from a cadaver. Using strong detergents, they stripped all of the donor’s cells and simply left the protein scaffold. Then they extracted smooth muscle and endothelial cells from the girl’s bone marrow. Two weeks after the seeding, the graft was reimplanted in a meso Rex bypass procedure.

The girl’s blood flow was instantly restored to normal function. She did not even develop any post-operative complications. After a year, she has gained weight from 30 to 35 kilograms and even increased her height from 137 to 143cm.

This is a good innovation since it will spare anyone with vein obstructions from the trauma of harvesting veins from their legs and deep neck. This kind of method has an associated risk of lower limb disorders. Also, it was able to avoid liver or multivisceral transplantation.