EasyJet Agrees To Reimburse Doctor For Ticket

A novel medical procedure almost didn't happen this summer, thanks to a British low-cost airline... and it was general aviation that literally flew to the rescue. BBC News reports British, German and Spanish doctors partnered on the effort that resulted in the first-ever transplant of a donor trachea, or windpipe, into a patient without the need for immunosuppresants.

The procedure -- which was successfully performed in June -- involved bone marrow stem cells obtained from the patient, 30-year-old Claudia Castillo, which were then grown in a lab and merged with the donor organ. Surgeons used the cells to line the windpipe... effectively fooling Castillo's body into believing the trachea was her own, and preventing the risk of rejection.

There was one problem, however. The lab was in Bristol... while the patient and donor organ were in Barcelona. And unless the cells were implanted within 16 hours from the time they were removed from the growth media, all efforts would have been for naught.

Only one airline flies the Bristol-Barcelona route -- low-cost carrier EasyJet. British scientists say they contacted the airline and made arrangements for the container carrying the stem cells to travel with a medical student. Officials note they also followed up with the airline several times, to make sure there would be no problems.

Sure enough, when German medical student Phillip Jungerbluth arrived at the check-in counter, lab cooler in hand... ticket agents said he couldn't travel with the suspect container.

"Check-in staff said that they couldn't take the material on board and that it could have been some kind of dangerous material," said Professor Anthony Hollander, one of the scientists involved. "After significant debate, it was concluded that it wasn't going to happen."

Fortunately, Jungerbluth knew a thoracic surgeon in Germany who also had his own business jet... and with the clock ticking, he made an important phone call.

"The clock was ticking. We'd taken the cells out of their culture media an hour before," said lead researcher Professor Martin Birchall. "We thought about driving to Barcelona, but that would have taken too long... We had a couple of conversations, and within two hours the surgeon was in Bristol -- with his private jet."

Birchall paid the tab for the flight's operational costs -- about $21,000 in today's dollars -- out of his own pocket. "If we hadn't been able to get the cells there, we would have wasted years of work and this major breakthrough for surgery and science wouldn't have taken place," he explained.

The cells arrived on time... and the modified trachea was successfully implanted into Castillo, whose own windpipe had been damaged by tuberculosis. Five months after the surgery, there remains no sign of rejection of the new organ, and Castillo is breathing normally once again. 

"The patient has not developed antibodies to her graft, despite not taking any immunosuppressive drugs," reads a statement from Bristol University, cited by The New York Times.

For its part, EasyJet maintains it has no record of any special requests made by the Bristol researchers... but as a goodwill gesture, the airline did agree to reimburse Birchall for the cost of his ticket. Bristol picked up the tab for the private jet.

FMI: www.bristol.ac.uk, www.easyjet.com