New Tracheotomy Alternative Gives Hope

ByABC News via logo
May 16, 2005, 8:08 PM

May 17, 2005 -- -- For years, patients like Dina Hanson who've suffered extensive damage to their trachea -- or windpipe -- have had just one option available to them: a tracheotomy.

The procedure consists of creating a small hole in the trachea and inserting a tube to aid the patient's breathing.

But a new procedure developed by Dr. Eric Genden, a throat expert at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, is giving new hope to patients who believed there was none.

When Hanson went into a diabetic coma, doctors inserted a tube down her throat to help her breathe.

But at the same time, Hanson suffered a dangerous side effect: Her trachea was so badly damaged that she couldn't breathe properly.

She estimates that she underwent some 20 surgeries to repair the damage, but nothing worked and the scar tissue always returned.

"They would take some of the scar damage out, and then go back two weeks later and there was scar there that came back," Hanson said. "So it's two steps forward, one step back."

For Hanson, who loves to sing, it was devastating.

Her only choice was a tracheotomy, which would allow her to take breaths through a tube connected to a small opening in the base of her neck.

While this allowed her to breathe, the tube redirected air that would normally pass through her vocal cords, making it difficult to speak and took away her ability to sing.

"I thought it was going to be terrible," Hanson said. "It was like the end, it felt like this is it, and how can I take care of my son or my family if I can't talk to them?"

But that was not the end, thanks to a new, more effective method for tracheal transplants developed by Genden.