Two lung transplantations performed in Manchester using new technology

The University Hospital of Manchester, England, is now the first clinic outside Sweden to have used the STEEN Solution™ method clinically. Two double lung transplantations have been performed with positive results. “It is exciting to note that Steen Solution™ and lung evaluation outside the body are beginning to become clinical practice in a leading country such as the UK, and that more people with lung disease thereby receive effective treatment,” says Magnus Nilsson, CEO of Vitrolife.

At the beginning of September Vitrolife announced that a lung transplantation had been performed for the first time using the STEEN Solution™ technology outside Sweden. Earlier on in the development and the first clinical use eight transplantations have been carried out using STEEN Solution™ at the University Hospital of Lund, where the technology was developed under the leadership of Professor Stig Steen.

The University Hospital of Manchester that performed the transplantation has now performed one further transplantation. According to Nizar Yonan, the hospital’s Transplant Director, both the transplantations were successful. Nizar Yonan says to the BBC that the method means that “we can have a better idea of those lungs and their function”. Due to the STEEN Solution™ method, which offers an opportunity to test the lung’s function ouside the body, lungs could be used which would have been out of the question without the aid of the technology. Kenneth Collins, who has suffered from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), is the first patient in the UK and is grateful to have got his life back. He says to the BBC that after the operation he feels “at least ten to fifteen years younger”.

With the STEEN Solution™ method, the number of potential organs that can be transplanted increases considerably. In the USA, for example, less than 20 percent of the lungs donated are transplanted today, due to uncertainty about the function of the organ. In time the STEEN Solution™ method can lead to a fivefold to tenfold increase in the number of lung transplantations carried out, as the need for donated organs using today’s methods considerably exceeds supply.

STEEN Solution™ is approved for sales in Europe, that is it is CE marked. At present a clinical study is ongoing in Canada using STEEN Solution™, which will form the basis of an application for sales approval in the USA and Canada.


December 15, 2008
Gothenburg, Sweden

Magnus Nilsson
CEO


Queries should be addressed to:
Magnus Nilsson, CEO, phone +46 31 721 80 00 or +46 708 22 80 61.
Anna Ahlberg, CFO, phone +46 31 721 80 13 or +46 708 22 80 13.