email article A team of Mount Sinai surgeons in New York City earlier this year performed the world's first human tracheal transplant surgery, the health system announced this week. News of the procedure's success already has other patients taking note. To date, surgeons have been unable to transplant the trachea -- an organ essential for speaking, breathing, and normal lung function -- because of the complexity of providing blood flow to the allograft, Mount Sinai said in announcing the procedure. Patients with significant tracheal damage have had no option for treatment. However, the Jan. 13 procedure -- the result of 30 years of research on how to provide blood flow to the trachea and understand the biology of the organ -- has provided new hope.