A Californian woman has regained her voice after a rare operation that marks only the second time surgeons have successfully performed a larynx transplant.
Brenda Jensen underwent the 18-hour operation over two days in October at the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, and was able to form her first words within 13 days.
After weeks of rehabilitation to regain her ability to speak normally, Jensen, a mother from the central California farming town of Modesto, met with the entire surgical team for the first time since the operation.
Doctors say Jensen was an ideal and rare candidate for the larynx, or voicebox, transplant, because after receiving a kidney and pancreas transplant in 2006, she was already taking a regimen of medications to guard against organ rejection.
The risk of organ rejection, along with the complexity of working on the larynx itself with its intricate nerves, accounts for why voicebox transplants are rarely done.
Jensen spent nearly four weeks in the hospital following the surgery in October. She was able to form her first words on October 29, but her voice was croaky, and since then she has been able to improve her ability to speak.
Since 1999, when Jensen paralysed her vocal chords by pulling out a ventilation tube during a hospital procedure, she has spoken through an electronic larynx device that allows a patient to form words but with a robot-like quality of sound.
The transplantation involved nearly two dozen physicians, nurses and other hospital staff members. The donated larynx came from an accident victim, the hospital said.
The only other documented larynx transplant was performed in 1998 at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.
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