First Lab-Grown Bladders, Transplanted

Filed in archive Stem Cells on April 6, 2006

The Washington Post reported the first laboratory grown bladder that was transplanted. This is the first cultivation of working replacements, the researchers say, for failing solid human organs: A breakthrough in medicine that will improve the health of patients:

The "neo-bladders," each one grown in a small laboratory container from a pinch of a patient's own cells, have been working in seven young patients for an average of almost four years, according to a report released yesterday by the British journal the Lancet. The organs have remained free of the many complications that bedevil the conventional practice of surgically constructing bladders from other tissues.

If ongoing studies continue apace, the researchers said, they hope someday to offer patients more than a dozen other homegrown organs, including blood-vessel complexes, partial kidneys and perhaps hearts.

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News and Photo Source: The Washington Post