Oesophageal atresia, where a baby's (food pipe) does not form properly, affects about 180 births in the UK every year
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The first oesophagus to be engineered in a lab could allow children born with part of their food pipe missing to have a new organ grown for them using their own cells and pig tissue, scientists believe.
Babies born with long-gap oesophageal atresia (LGOA), a rare condition which causes the food pipe to be separated by a wide gap, cannot survive without surgery and face a higher risk of complications.
Experts who have been working on the technology for more than a decade are hopeful that engineered tissue treatments can be offered to these youngsters within five years.
One family whose two-year-old son has spent half his life in hospital with LGOA said it would be “life-changing”.
The pigs that received the lab-grown oesophagus for the research were able to swallow and eat normally, and did not need drugs to stop their body rejecting the organ.
The study was led by experts at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) and University College London (UCL), with the process taking about two months from start to finish.
Dr Marco Pellegrini, senior researcher at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (UCL GOS ICH), said “Our technology could allow us to build a child a new oesophagus, using their own cells, collected in a surgery they are having anyway, combined with a ready-prepared scaffold from pig tissue.
“Because the graft contains the child’s own muscle progenitor cells, it would be recognised as their own tissue.
“This means it could grow with them over time, without the risk of rejection and without the need for long-term immunosuppression.”
If adapted for humans, researchers suggest different sized scaffolds could be stored ready to be developed and personalised for newborns or children with LGOA.
Biopsies could be taken from youngsters when having feeding tubes fitted, they said.
Oesophageal atresia (OA) affects about 180 births in the UK every year. Usually, surgery is performed on babies soon after birth to close the gap.
However, about 10% of cases have LGOA, which means the gap is too large to close immediately after birth. These babies typically require a feeding tube to get nutrients directly to the stomach for months before having surgery.
Experts said other options include an operation to bring the stomach into the chest, known as a gastric pull-up. However, this can lead to further surgeries and complications such as reflux into the lungs which can cause lung disease in the long term.
Two-year-old Casey McIntyre, from London, was born with 11cm of his food pipe missing.
His mother, Silviya Lukanova, 38, said: “He’s had major operation after major operation as we simply couldn’t get the gap to close using his own tissue.
“After being referred to Gosh, we had the best option at the time – pulling up his stomach to close the gap but it’s been a long road and he still has a feeding tube while he develops his swallowing.
“The repeated surgeries have left him with some damage to his vocal cords so he’s developing his speech and noise-making to catch up. Once he’s eating enough through his mouth, we’ll be able to take his tube out.”
Casey’s father, Sean Mcintyre, 35, said the memories of their son’s treatment “will never leave” the couple
.“Whatever the team did for him was really a miracle but the idea that there could be one operation early in your child’s life, that could transplant a working piece of oesophagus, and then we could move on would be life-changing.”
