IT WAS a medical breakthrough that could change the shape of transplant surgery. But the pioneering transplant of an organ created in a laboratory almost did not happen after airline staff refused to allow vital stem cells on a plane.
Doctors who took part in the remarkable operation to create an artificial windpipe for Claudia Castillo arrived at Bristol airport to take stem cells harvested from the patient to Spain.
But their work was almost undone by EasyJet staff, who ins
isted the cells – carried in liquid to protect them – had not been cleared for travel.
With time running out – the cells were useable for only 16 hours – researchers from Bristol University were forced to pay £14,000 to hire a private jet to fly them abroad, to create part of a new airway for the patient.
Professor Martin Birchall said the last-minute hitch came despite several conversations with the airline to ensure there would be a smooth passage.
He said he had been furious at the situation and was nearly arrested by armed police while trying to resolve the problem.
The crisis was averted only because Philip Jungerbluth, the medical student accompanying the stem cells, contacted a surgeon he knew in Germany with a private plane. He arrived in Bristol within two hours.
The operation, which took place in Barcelona in June, was reported in The Scotsman this week and described in the Lancet medical journal.
Medics replaced Ms Castillo's windpipe, or trachea – which had been damaged by tuberculosis – with one they had grown from her own stem cells.
Professor Anthony Hollander, another of the scientists involved, said that, after a lengthy debate, check-in staff had refused to take the material, fearing it could be dangerous.
Prof Birchall said: "The clock was ticking as we'd taken the cells out of their culture media an hour before. We thought about driving to Barcelona, but that would have taken too long.
"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."
EasyJet spokesman Andrew McConnell said requests for cell and organ transport were usually taken by the company's call-centre in Poznan, Poland.
Doctors would then be advised to call the United Kingdom Transportation for Transplants organisation (UKTFT), which would arrange clearance with the airline.
But in this case, doctors were understood to have called the UK head office direct, he said.
Mr McConnell said that, although there was no record of a request to transport the stem cells anywhere in the files, he would "rule out" the possibility of administrative error.
Mr McConnell said: "We have an established process to transport human organs. As a gesture of goodwill, we've refunded the flight."
