Topline
A Massachusetts man can speak again after his cancerous larynx was removed and replaced in a rare procedure, the Mayo Clinic announced Tuesday, marking the world’s first successful larynx transplant in a patient with cancer.
Four months after surgery, the man can speak with his “new voice,” swallow and breathe on his own, ... [+]
Key Facts
Marty Kedian, 59, underwent a successful 21-hour procedure on Feb. 29, during which he received a transplant for his cancerous larynx, pharynx—the muscular tube that helps people breathe and digest food—and his upper trachea and esophagus, in addition to thyroid glands, blood vessels and nerves, Mayo Clinic said.
Four months after surgery, Kedian can speak with his “new voice,” swallow and breathe on his own, his doctors said, adding his breathing “continues to steadily improve.”
Kedian, who was diagnosed with a rare form of laryngeal cancer called chondrosarcoma, was previously unable to speak or swallow and breathe normally after he received “dozens” of surgeries over 10 years.
Kedian received a tracheostomy several years ago that allowed him to breathe through a hole in his neck, and doctors later urged him to get a larynx transplant after he indicated his quality of life had diminished, according to Mayo Clinic, which noted it 10 months to find a donor with a healthy larynx at the right size.
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Big Number
12,600. That’s the estimated number of people who will be diagnosed with a form of laryngeal cancer this year, according to the American Cancer Society.
Key Background
There have been only three documented larynx transplants in the U.S., including Kedian’s procedure, though none had been completed on a patient with cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic. A laryngectomy is a “rare and complex” procedure that’s performed “only a handful of times” worldwide, the clinic said, largely because people can survive without a larynx. The world’s first larynx transplant was completed at the Cleveland Clinic in 1998 on a patient who lost his ability to speak after a motorcycle accident. The second procedure was completed by the University of California, Davis, in 2010, after a 52-year-old woman’s larynx was damaged by a hospital ventilation tube. Peter Belafsky, a doctor who helped perform the transplant at UC Davis, told the Associated Press that alternatives to larynx transplants are being studied, though there’s “still a shot” the transplants become more common after more research.
