Bronchial Replacement in the Respiratory System

We went into depth about the respiratory system yesterday. Today, we are going to look at one specific spot in the respiratory system that can be replaced, which is the bronchial.

The bronchial is related to the bronchi, which is the large air tubes that start at the bottom of your throat and branch off into each lung ("Glossary - OxygeNation"). In 2010, researchers concluded that you can replace the bronchial with arterial allograft ("Bronchial Replacement with Arterial Allografts"). We all know what arterial is right? If not, then arterial is "of or involving or contained in the arteries" ("Arterial"). I have never heard of allograft, but I searched it up, and it means "a tissue or organ transplanted from a  donor of the same species but different genetic makeup" ("Allograft"). 

The history behind this replacement would be if you get a sleeve lobectomy. What is a sleeve lobectomy? Well, this is a surgery to remove a lung tumor in a lobe of the lung and a part of the main airway ("The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation"). Scientists did some experimenting that demonstrated that aortic grafts are valuable for tracheal and carinal substitutes ("Bronchial Replacement with Arterial Allografts"). This proved that bronchial can be replaced by arterial allografts.

Their method was tested on fifteen sheep and the results were none of the sheep died ("Bronchial Replacement with Arterial Allografts"). In conclusion, this experiment confirmed that arterial allograft can be a substitute for bronchial. If you would like to read more, here is the link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20609787.

This was a little history about the replacement of the bronchial in the respiratory system. Think about a friend, family member, even an animal. Did they ever had to replace something in their respiratory system? If so, what was it? Leave your questions and/or comments below and I will get to it as soon as I can!

Works Cited:

"Allograft." Word Net Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2013. 

<wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=allograft>.

"Arterial." Word Net Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2013. 

<wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=arterial>.

"Bronchial Replacement with Arterial Allografts." National Center for Biotechnology 

Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2013. 

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20609787>.

"Glossary - OxygeNation." OxygeNation . N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2013. 

<http://www.oxygenation.com/usertools/glossary.php>.

"The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation."cholangiocarcinoma.org :: the cholangiocarcinoma 

foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2013. 

<http://www.cholangiocarcinoma.org/glossary-s.htm>.