Patient's persistence got him a new esophagus at UPMC
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Michael Wright of Columbus, Ohio, fought hard to be a patient of Blair A. Jobe at the Heart, Lung and Esophageal Surgery Institute at UPMC. Now he's happy to talk about the success of his surgery, which used techniques in regenerative medicine to restore the lining of his esophagus.
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Just days after a doctor at Ohio State University recommended that Michael Wright have his cancerous esophagus removed, Mr. Wright saw a segment on "60 Minutes" that would change his life.
In the segment, which aired Dec. 13, Blair A. Jobe, director of esophageal research at the Heart, Lung and Esophageal Surgery Institute at UPMC, described how he had treated an esophageal cancer patient by inserting an instrument through his mouth and removing the cancerous lining of his esophagus, which routes food to the stomach, and then using pig tissue to help regenerate a new, cancer-free lining.
After seeing the segment, Mr. Wright, a 54-year-old quality control officer from Columbus, Ohio, bombarded Dr. Jobe with e-mails, faxes and FedEx messages begging for a chance to have the novel treatment. Although he knew that removing part of his esophagus, known as an esophagectomy, was an option, it was one he resisted because it would limit the foods he could eat, and he wanted to keep enjoying the steak and chocolate he loves.
As it turned out, Mr. Wright, who had very early stage esophageal cancer and another kind of damage known as Barrett's esophagus, was just the patient Dr. Jobe was looking for, and on March 10, he became the second person in the world to undergo the pig tissue procedure.
Doctors removed about 6 inches of his esophageal lining and then put in the scaffolding tissue from a pig's bladder, known as the extracellular matrix. The treatment is so new, experts in the field are still not quite sure how it works. They think that the matrix has the ability to help the patient's own stem cells repopulate the esophagus and prevent scar tissue from forming, but more research is needed.
First Published June 2, 2010 12:00 am
