Ten-year-old Ciaran Lynch of Castleblayney, Ireland, received a new trachea grown from his own adult stem cells, the Irish Independent reported. Ciaran was born with a condition that causes an extremely small airway in his windpipe.

Key members of the team behind the latest operation.

“This procedure is different in a number of ways, and we believe it’s a real milestone,” said Professor Martin Birchall of University College London, according to Agence France-Presse. “It is the first time a child has received stem cell organ treatment, and it’s the longest airway that has ever been replaced.”

The successful surgery comes two years after Claudia Castillo became the first person to receive a transplant organ created from stem cells. The 30-year-old mother of two “received a new section of trachea after her own had been damaged by tuberculosis,” according to the BBC. “The latest operation is a significant advance on that pioneering work, as it is the first time a whole tissue engineered windpipe has been transplanted.”

Ciaran suffered from Long Segment Congenital Tracheal Stenosis, and his trachea measured only one millimeter across at birth, the Irish Independent reported. Doctors implanted a metal stent in order to widen the windpipe, but the stent began to erode last November. The best way to save Ciaran was to replace his damaged trachea with a new organ.

In previous cases, adult stem cells were induced to create the needed organ outside of the patient’s body, and then transplanted once it was fully grown. For Ciaran, a donor trachea was obtained, its cells were removed, and Ciaran’s bone marrow cells were injected into the trachea scaffolding, according to the Irish Independent.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London then immediately transplanted the organ into Ciaran, where the stem cells will continue to specialize and create a whole trachea. The entire procedure from obtaining Ciaran’s cells to transplantation took only four hours, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Doctors said Ciaran was already breathing normally after the operation, and his progress will be watched closely in the coming months. “We are now very hopeful the operation will be a success and that Ciaran’s life can be saved,” a Lynch family friend told the Irish Independent.

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