The six boys and two girls — ranging in weight from 1 pound 8 ounces to 3 pounds 4 ounces — were generally doing well in incubators following their Caesarean-section delivery at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Bellflower, California, doctors said.

Three of the babies need breathing assistance, but otherwise the eight don’t appear to have serious problems, doctors said at a news conference Monday evening.

“It was a truly amazing delivery,” said Dr. Karen Maples, chief of the hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology department.

Doctors initially believed the mother — whom they did not identify — was pregnant with seven fetuses. The woman was 23 weeks pregnant when she was hospitalized seven weeks ago and ordered to bed rest.

Over a seven-week period, a team of 46 physicians, nurses and other staff prepared for the births. When they started the delivery Monday — more than nine weeks before the babies would be full term — they were in for a surprise.

“After we got to Baby G, we were surprised by the discovery of a Baby H,” Maples said.

Getting the number correct with ultrasounds before delivery is difficult with so many babies, said Dr. Harold Henry, the hospital’s chief of fetal medicine.

“It is quite easy to miss a baby when you’re expecting seven,” Henry said.

The hospital said the woman didn’t want her personal information released to the news media, and it would not answer questions about whether she’d had fertility treatments.

Preliminary research indicates this is the second set of live-born octuplets in the United States, according to the hospital.

Eight babies believed to be the United States’ first set of live octuplets were born in Houston, Texas, in 1998. One of the infants died days after birth. The seven other siblings recently celebrated their 10th birthday, the Houston Chronicle reported last month.

The first three to seven days will be critical for the California babies, said Dr. Mandhir Gupta, one of the doctors at the news conference. The infants could be in incubators for six to eight weeks and in the hospital for 10 weeks, Gupta said.

The mother is doing “very well” after the deliveries, which took about five minutes, Gupta said.

“She is very excited that she [has] all these babies and that the babies are looking good so far,” Gupta said.

Octuplets’ births surprise California doctors – CNN.com

The groundbreaking technology also means for the first time tissue transplants can be carried out without the need for anti-rejection drugs.

Five months on the patient, 30-year-old mother-of-two Claudia Castillo, is in perfect health, The Lancet reports.

She needed the transplant to save a lung after contracting tuberculosis.

The disease had damaged her airways.

Scientists from Bristol helped grow the cells for the transplant and the European team believes such tailor-made organs could become the norm.

To make the new airway, the doctors took a donor windpipe, or trachea, from a patient who had recently died.

Then they used strong chemicals and enzymes to wash away all of the cells from the donor trachea, leaving only a tissue scaffold made of the fibrous protein collagen.

This gave them a structure to repopulate with cells from Ms Castillo herself, which could then be used in an operation to repair her damaged left bronchus – a branch of the windpipe.

By using Ms Castillo’s own cells the doctors were able to trick her body into thinking the donated trachea was part of it, thus avoiding rejection.

Advanced science

Two types of cell were taken from Ms Castillo: cells lining her windpipe, and adult stem cells – very immature cells from the bone marrow – which could be encouraged to grow into the cells that normally surround the windpipe.

After four days of growth in the lab in a special rotating bioreactor, the newly-coated donor windpipe was ready to be transplanted into Ms Castillo.

Her surgeon, Professor Paolo Macchiarini of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Spain, carried out the operation in June

He said: “I was very much afraid. Before this, we had been doing this work only on pigs.

“But as soon as the donor trachea came out of the bioreactor it was a very positive surprise.”

He said it looked and behaved identically to a normal human donor trachea.

The operation was a great success and just four days after transplantation the hybrid windpipe was almost indistinguishable from adjacent normal airways.

After a month, a biopsy of the site proved that the transplant had developed its own blood supply.

And with no signs of rejection four months on, Professor Macchiarini says the future chance of rejection is practically zero.

“We are terribly excited by these results,” he said.

“She is enjoying a normal life, which for us clinicians is the most beautiful gift.”

Today Ms Castillo is living an active, normal life, and once again able to look after her children Johan, 15, and Isabella, four. She can walk up two flights of stairs without getting breathless.

Professor Martin Birchall, professor of surgery at the University of Bristol who helped grow the cells for the transplant, said: “This will represent a huge step change in surgery.

“Surgeons can now start to see and understand the potential for adult stem cells and tissue engineering to radically improve their ability to treat patients with serious diseases.”

He said that in 20 years time, virtually any transplant organ could be made in this way.

US scientists have already successfully implanted bladder patches grown in the laboratory from patients’ own cells into people with bladder disease.

The European research team, which also includes experts from the University of Padua and the Polytechnic of Milan in Italy, is applying for funding to do windpipe and voice box transplants in cancer patients.

Clinical trials could begin five years from now, they said.

Between 50,000 and 60,000 people are diagnosed with cancer of the larynx each year in Europe, and scientists say about half them may be suitable candidates for tissue engineering transplants.

BBC NEWS

The 38-year-old was rendered infertile when her ovaries failed at the age of 15, causing her to suffer an early menopause. After receiving an ovary transplanted from her twin sister, the woman, who lives in London, is expected to give birth this week.

The pioneering surgery will give hope not only to more than 100,000 British women who suffer an early menopause, but also to those undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer. They could now freeze an ovary before beginning the treatment.

The success also raises the possibility of women freezing ovarian tissue to postpone motherhood for social reasons, such as delaying marriage or not wishing to interrupt their careers.

Unlike IVF, the conventional infertility treatment, an ovary transplant not only allows a woman to conceive “naturally” but also restores hormone levels in women who have suffered an early menopause. The hormones produced in the ovaries – oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone – affect the female body in many ways, including prompting monthly periods and protecting the bones from osteoporosis.

After the ovary transplant, the previously sterile woman had periods for the first time in 22 years. In addition to the joy of becoming pregnant, the osteoporosis she had previously suffered showed signs of improvement as a result of restored hormone levels. The woman’s twin, who already has two children, was prepared to sacrifice one of her ovaries to give her sister the chance of becoming a mother. The baby will, genetically, be the twin sister’s child.

The transplant was carried out in America early last year by Dr Sherman Silber, the microsurgery pioneer of the Infertility Center of St Louis in Missouri.

Silber removed the ovary, which is the size of a walnut, from the donor twin using keyhole surgery. He implanted the ovary into the recipient and had to connect tiny blood vessels, one only a third of a millimetre in diameter, to establish blood flow to the organ.

Three months after the transplant the woman began to ovulate normally and her hormone levels were equal to those of her healthy twin after five months. The woman discovered she was pregnant about a year after the transplant.

Silber, who will discuss the pregnancy at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine tomorrow, described the reconnection of the arteries and veins in the transplant as “extremely delicate”.

“Reconnecting these blood vessels deep inside the pelvis can be a tactical challenge. The ovarian artery is less than a third of a millimetre in diameter, in fact so small [that] many gynaecologists have never seen it,” he said.

The transplant from an identical twin made it unlikely that the organ would be rejected. Transplants can be extended to close relatives but immuno-suppressive drugs are needed to prevent rejection of the organ.

Gynaecologists have already carried out transplants of strips of ovarian tissue, which have resulted in at least three births. This is the first known pregnancy from a whole ovary transplant, although a series of the transplants has been carried out by Silber. Transplants of these pieces of ovarian tissue last for about three years. Silber believes that a whole ovary could last for up to a decade.

Times Online

Claudia Mitchell lost her left arm at the shoulder in a motorbike accident.

Her new arm works by detecting movements of a chest muscle that has been connected to the remains of nerves that once went to her real arm.

The first prototype was fitted to double amputee Jesse Sullivan four years ago.

However, the latest version has been significantly improved.

Using it Ms Mitchell, 26, can now fold clothes, eat a banana and do the washing up.

At a press conference in Chicago to reveal her new arm to the world, Ms Mitchell said: “I can move my elbow up and down and I can open and close my hand simply by thinking that that’s what I want to do.”

Big advance

With her older prosthetic arm, she could only do one thing at a time – either bend her elbow or open her hand.

The technology, developed by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), took about five hours to install.
The ends of the nerves that once controlled the arm were removed from her shoulder and connected to nerves in the chest muscle, some of which conveyed sensation from the skin above.

Over several months the transplanted nerves grew into the muscle tissue.

Once this happened electrodes fixed to a harness worn on the shoulder were able to detect impulses emitted from the nerves into the muscle and forward them to the arm.

These impulses are processed by a computer, which is able to direct the arm to make very precise movements.

Ms Mitchell said: “Before the surgery, I doubted that I would ever be able to get my life back.

“But this arm and the RIC have allowed me to return to a life that is more rewarding and active than I ever could have imagined.

“I am happy, confident and independent.”

She said the arm was heavy, but that was due to extra motors which gave it a greater range of function.

Many could benefit

At present, if Ms Mitchell is touched on the patch of skin on her chest where the nerves to the hand have been re-routed, she feels that her hand is being touched.

The next step will be to develop a way to have the signals come back from the fingers on the prosthetic to the nerves in the chest and then the brain, so that Ms Mitchell can feel pressure, heat or cold, and even a sharp edge.

The Chicago team estimates that the technology could potentially help more than 400 US military personnel who have had amputations after serving in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Todd Kuiken, the director of RIC’s Neural Engineering Centre for Bionic Medicine, said: “It is so rewarding for me as a physician and a scientist to lead research with the potential to positively impact the lives of amputees.”

Ms Mitchell said she was concerned that her new arm looked as attractive as possible.

“When we got the glove that goes over it I asked them if I could put nails on it and they said yes, so I headed straight for the nail salon.

“She (the manicurist) was pretty terrified, she was afraid she was going to mess something up, but I assured her it was OK.”

BBC NEWS | Health | Woman is fitted with ‘bionic’ arm

Karl Merk, who lost his arms in a farming accident six years ago, said he at first could not believe that the transplant appeared to have been succesful.

“It was really overwhelming when I saw that I had arms again,” said the 54-year-old, who wore a sleeveless black shirt showing clearly where his new arms had been grafted.

“These are my arms, and I’m not giving them away again,” he told reporters at the Munich University Clinic where he remains nearly three months after the 15-hour operation.

Merk is recovering well and can perform simple tasks such as opening doors and turning lights on and off. His ultimate goals are to eat and dress himself — and ride a motorcycle.

“All in all, our wildest expectations have pretty much been fulfilled,” said Christoph Hoehnke, one of the lead doctors.

A total of 40 surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and other support staff carried out the 15-hour operation on July 25-26 to graft the donor’s arms on to the body of Merk, who lost his own just below the shoulder in a combine harvester accident.

Doctors said there were good indications of nerve growth in the arms but it could take up to two years before he relearns how to use his hands.

Merk appeared at the news conference Wednesday with lower arms bandaged and supported with a series of straps attached to shoulder pads.

Merk said he was looking forward to going home after four to six more weeks of an intensive program of physiotherapy, electric stimulation and psychological counseling.

There is also still a risk that Merk’s immune system will react, though doctors said so far there was no sign of them being rejected.

The Associated Press: German doing well after 1st double arm transplant

Erica Rix underwent 10 hours of surgery after the accident in early September and spent nine days in intensive care before returning home.

Erica was playing with a jump rope in the back seat of her mother’s car and let one end of the rope out the window to flutter in the wind.

“I wanted to see it go up and down because I thought I was going to fly,” she said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today.”

The rope caught on the car’s axle and a loop of the rope tightened around the girl’s wrist, slicing off her hand.

“She was screaming and screaming and so I got out of the car and at her window that was just cracked about that much, the remaining part of her hand … most of it was gone,” her mother, Allison Rix, said on “Today.”

Passing motorist Jim Bailey, of Saratoga, stopped and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, the San Jose Mercury News said.

“I was trying to wave down a passer-by,” Allison Rix said Tuesday, “and he stopped immediately and ran up to the car and had to assess the situation then — just like a superhero, I like to think of him — as he whipped out his belt and did a tourniquet” while she tried to call 911.

Rix said her cell phone got disconnected but another person who stopped was able to call emergency services.

Passer-by Pat Heller spotted Erica’s hand lying on the street, and she and a resident directed traffic around it.

“I took some real deep breaths. I just kept telling myself ‘This is a child’s hand,’” Heller told the Mercury News.

The Associated Press: Girl’s hand reattached after jump rope accident