Esophageal B. A.

Under the leadership of Dr. Alejandro Nieponice, a clinical translation program for regenerative medicine is running in Buenos Aires, Argentina in partnership with McGowan Institute. Dr. Nieponice has treated several patients with extracellular matrix for esophageal applications. Hiatal hernia repair is a frequent procedure in western countries as treatment for reflux disease and ECM scaffolds are becoming routinely used to prevent recurrence. ECM has been successfully used where other options had previously failed, like closures of esophageal fistulae (figure 1 and video 1) or repair of esophageal strictures (figure 2, video 2).

Figure 1. A 55 year-old patient developed a bronchoesophageal fistula as a postoperative complication. After 3 sessions of ECM deployment the tract was closed and the patient resumed a normal life.

Figure 2. Esophageal stricture at the cervical level in an 8-year-old boy after caustic ingestion (left). The entire lateral wall of the esophagus was replaced by an ECM scaffold (right) that remodeled completely. The patient resumed oral intake 7 days PO with no leaks.