Word: larynxed
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...lung transplant was disclosed almost incidentally during a buzz of excitement over another Ghent operation, believed to be the world's first transplant of a larynx. Jean-Baptiste Borremans,-62, a rural policeman, had been complaining for a year of discomfort in his throat, and he became progressively more gravel-voiced. While he was under observation at the University Clinic, says Mme. Borremans, "the doctors decided to operate, but there was no question of a transplant. It was the morning after the operation when I went with our two grown children to see him that I was told Jean...
...larynx, protected by the Adam's apple, is an organ with three important functions. The valve-like flap at its top, the epiglottis, must close when anything is being swallowed, to keep food or drink from going into the larynx or down the windpipe. With the valve open, the larynx is part of the airway to the lungs. Within it are two folds, the vocal cords, which vibrate when air is exhaled. The vibration of the cords generates the basic sound that is modified by various mouth structures to produce speech...
Burp Speech. Normal speech is impossible without a larynx, but thousands of patients who have had their larynxes removed because of cancer learn to speak by swallowing air and expelling it while they vibrate their gullet muscles. In this esophageal or "burp" speech, the esophagus (gullet) substitutes for the windpipe. Although the Ghent surgery team headed by Professor Paul Kluyskens would say only that Borremans' larynx had to be removed, his complaint was almost certainly cancer. Knowing that many laryngectomy patients fail to learn esophageal speech, Kluyskens decided that a new larynx would offer Borremans a great advantage...
...larynx, also from an unnamed donor, was transplanted in a four-hour operation. To what extent Kluyskens tried to attach the recipient's laryngeal nerves to those in the graft, or to what extent he succeeded, was unclear. On this depends the ability of the larynx to function more or less like Borremans' own. Last week one of his doctors described Borremans' breathing as perfect, and added: "His voice already exists." He was still being fed artificially...
Some U.S. physicians questioned whether the larynx transplant was ethical. It exposed Borremans to additional surgical hazards, not to mention the perils of immunosuppressive drugs. All that was necessary, in their view, was a simple laryngectomy...