A doctor in Memphis, Tenn., rebuilt a child’s voice box in a first-of-its-kind surgery, using pieces of the child’s ribs.
The parents of two-year-old Cooper Kilburn got into a car accident when his mother was 16 weeks pregnant with him, and an ultrasound later showed an abnormality with his airway.
Dr. Jerome Thompson of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital was able to determine that Kilburn would not be able to talk or breathe due to a rare condition where a child has “no visible larynx,” he said.
To combat this, Thompson performed a caesarean section on Kilburn’s mother, but left the baby attached via the umbilical cord while he inserted a tube known as a trach into his throat, where it would attach to a ventilator.
With the ventilator and trach Kilburn could breathe, but would not have a voice and would still be at risk of complications.
Two years later, Thompson performed a second surgery on Kilburn and sculpted a voice box for the child using pieces of his ribs, a surgical first.
The new voice box means that Kilburn will be able to eventually learn to talk and breathe without a ventilator, and even play sports, according to Thompson.
