By Jessica Heslam
Thursday, April 29, 2010
http://www.bostonherald.com
A 14-year-old girl - turned away from four hospitals in a desperate bid for lifesaving cancer treatment - found a miracle waiting in a Brigham and Women’s operating room, where doctors removed a deadly tumor and used groundbreaking technology to grow a new trachea from her own cells.
But Brianna Ranzino’s newfound hope stems not from modern medicine, the Boston medical team says, but from something that came from the heart of the heroic teen.
“Her courage fueled the whole thing,” said Dr. David Sugarbaker, chief of thoracic surgery at the Brigham.
Recovering in her hospital room, where doctors say her odds of living a full, normal life are strong, the New Jersey teenager said yesterday that she can’t wait to go back to riding horses, playing with her dogs, having sleepovers and eating spicy foods.
“I just wanted to live to be an adult and stuff, and have kids,” Brianna told the Herald in an exclusive interview as she rested alongside her teddy bear and stuffed monkey.
Just three years ago, doctors discovered a malignant growth on Brianna’s trachea, or airway. But two failed surgeries to remove the cancerous tumor left her malnourished and with a gaping hole between her esophagus and her trachea.
“She wasn’t able to eat or drink without getting it into her lungs,” said her mother, Lisa Ranzino.
Two hospitals in Philadelphia, one in Maryland and one in Boston all deemed the growth inoperable.
Enter Dr. Sugarbaker, chief of thoracic surgery at the Brigham. “Everybody said, ‘Sorry, nothing we can do.’ We really saw the Brigham as her last stop,” Sugarbaker said.
Brigham researcher Dr. Charles Vacanti decided to replace Brianna’s damaged trachea with a new one - engineered from her own tissue and nourished inside her abdomen.
Doctors took cartilage cells from one of Brianna’s ribs, grew them in an incubator, seeded them into polymer fibers and then shaped the polymer fibers around a tube shaped like the windpipe - which was then incubated inside her abdomen for eight weeks.
During the 14 hour surgery to remove the tumor March 18, the surgeons discovered that the tissue-engineered trachea wasn’t formed enough. Luckily the tumor was only the size of a quarter, smaller than the surgeons expected, and they were able to remove it as well as a large portion of her esophagus and trachea. They replaced her esophagus by pulling her stomach up under her breast bone and connecting it into her left neck.
Brianna spent 3 weeks in intensive care and is now recovering in a hospital room adorned with photos. A few days ago, she even ate some Fritos.
“This child never gave up hope,” Lisa Ranzino said. “She just kept telling me, ‘It’s going to be OK mom, stop worrying.’ She really had enough confidence to know that somebody out there was going to do this for her.”
“Here was a little girl that had been told over and over and over again, ‘You’re going to die. There’s nothing anybody can do,”’ Dr. Sugarbaker said. “This little girl came in with more courage than I’ve witnessed in my 20 years of practice.”
Added Dr. Raphael Bueno, associate chief of thoracic surgery: “She can eat. She can breathe. Those are two things she couldn’t do before effectively. She can live, hopefully, her full natural life.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1250978
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