A British boy, suffering from Long Segment Congenital Tracheal Stenosis, a disorder where patients are born with narrow wind pipes, has received path breaking stem cell surgery.

British and Italian doctors rebuild the windpipe of the boy with stem cells developed within his own body. The procedure was performed on Monday and it lasted approximately 9 hours.

The boy was operated upon at the Great Ormond Street children's hospital. Doctors embedded a donor trachea into the boy’s body. The trachea had been rid of the donor’s stem cells and injected with stem cells produced in the boy’s bone marrow.

Professor Martin Birchall, University College London, declares that this is the first occasion where a child has received stem cell organ treatment. It has also been the longest windpipe ever to be replaced.

Doctors anticipate that in the time span of one month the bone marrow stem cells in the windpipe will change into tracheal cells. This process of regenerating body parts from stem cells is radical and would be revolutionary if it is successful. At birth, the boy’s trachea measured just 1mm.

Professor Anthony Hollander, ARC professor of rheumatology and tissue engineering at the University of Bristol, said, "The advantage of the new approach is that it can be performed quickly and cheaply and so if successful it could be made available to large numbers of patients at relatively low cost".