Artificial Organ Transplant Success Rate Rises

An artificial tissue transplant operation on a patient with a cancerous thyroid gland that had previously been cut partly to regenerate mucous membranes was successfully performed by a Kyoto University team led by Professor Nakamura Dasuo, a Japanese news report said Sunday.

The artificial internal organ or tissue transplant has failed many times before because the membrane tissue of artificial internal organs has not taken root well, leading to inflammation in the region of the operation.

A Kyoto University research team that has developed artificial internal organs for 20 years solved this problem by covering the surface of the artificial tissue with collagen, which is protein forming animal bone and other substances.

The artificial tissue the research team made was produced by processing a synthetic fiber, polypropylene, which was evaluated to have the same flexibility as real organs, which grow in the shape of net forms from cartilage.

The results of this transplant operation on a man and a woman in their seventies who had parts of their thyroid glands cut from cancer are expected to be printed in U.S. laryngeal science transactions in May.

Hun-Joo Cho hanscho@donga.com