A man from Massachusetts named Marty Kedian underwent the first successful whole larynx transplant and amazingly recovered both his voice and his Boston accent.
According to USA Today, Kedian,59, underwent laryngoscopic surgery, or voice box replacement, at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix in February to remove chondrosarcoma, an uncommon kind of laryngeal cancer.
Kedian, who had several surgeries after receiving a cancer diagnosis ten years ago, stated: “I was alive, but I wasn’t living.” In every place I go, I love to strike up a conversation, but I was unable to. I refused to leave the house and felt weird.”
According to a press release from the Mayo Clinic, the operation marked the first time a larynx transplant has been done on a patient with active malignancy.
Over the course of 21 hours, six surgeons executed the intricate procedure, which involved several veins and nerves.
The chair of the Department of Otolaryngology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Dr. David Lott, stated, “The larynx is really part of a unit, or I like to say, a true biomechanical structure where it is alive.”
“The vast majority of people that have problems with just the larynx will also have (other throat) problems just because of how that all is so intricately woven together to work.”
The American Cancer Society reports that 12,650 new instances of laryngeal cancer were recorded in the US this year; the surgery was a part of the first documented clinical trial on laryngeal transplantation in the country.
