Adult human lungs able to re-grow
New research has uncovered the first evidence that the adult human lung is capable of regenerating, to an extent after being removed surgically.
Researchers used MRIs with hyperpolarized helium-3 gas to show that existing alveoli which are the tiny, air-exchange units of the lung, increased in number after a 33-year-old woman had her entire right lung removed due to cancer.
A year and a half after the surgery, the woman started a daily exercise program which included yoga, walking and cycling to get back into shape. Doctors theorize that it is the exercise that helps in the re-growth of the lung.
In the study, a 64 percent increase in the number of alveoli in the woman’s lung was found 15 years after her surgery.
“The research clearly shows that some form of lung growth can occur in the adult human,” said study author James Butler, an associate professor of medicine in the department of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
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