Rare larynx transplant performed at Mayo Clinic Arizona

In the spring, the Mayo Clinic performed a rare transplant: the larynx. The larynx is a critical organ of the human body. It allows us to breathe, swallow and speak.

Doctors transplanted a patient’s voice box, windpipe and other organs in the throat.

The larynx procedure has been executed five times in the world. Three of those times were in the United States.

Dr. David Lott of the Mayo Clinic Arizona joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss this procedure.

There’s many components besides the voice box that makes it crucial for surgery. 

“…there’s the trachea, the upper part of the trachea, the upper part of the esophagus, the pharynx, the thyroid gland…nerves and vessels so it’s really a composite graph,” said Lott.  

The patient struggled with a condition called chondrosarcoma which is a type of cancer that grows in cartilage cells. 

“He had a long time battle with a low grade…called chondrosarcoma and one way to treat that is to resect it slowly over time to try to prevent somebody from maybe a laryngectomy and unfortunately things didn’t work for him. The benefit he had is he already had a transplant…,” said Lott. 

In addition, the patient struggled to function through life including not being able to communicate and struggling to breathe. 

“He went through a point where he could not speak at all. Through some reconstruction he was able to get a bit of a voice help but really not much of one where he could communicate, just the basics. He had a…tube he had to breathe through a hole in his neck because he couldn’t breathe through his mouth. He was able to swallow only because his larynx was so bad he physically could not aspirate,” said Lott.