A Haverhill man who had been voiceless or struggling to speak for years can once again talk — and crack jokes — after becoming the world’s first patient with active cancer to receive a total voice box transplant.
Marty Kedian celebrated with family and friends Thursday at a Newburyport restaurant, his recovering voice soft and his mood grateful.
“I’d sing a song, but it’d be terrible,” he said. “A year and a half ago, I couldn’t even talk to any of you. Now I’m able to speak again. And you’re never going to shut me up.”
Kedian has a rare form of laryngeal cancer. As his disease progressed, he lost the ability to speak, swallow and breathe on his own.
The transplant surgery took place at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where Kedian and his wife had moved temporarily while waiting for a donor. On Feb. 29, a medical team spent 21 hours on the surgery using a donor’s larynx, pharynx, upper trachea, upper esophagus, thyroid and parathyroid glands, blood vessels and nerves.
Kedian still has a tracheostomy tube as he regains the ability to breathe fully on his own.
“Mr. Kedian has already regained about 60% of his voice, which I wouldn’t have thought would happen for at least a year,” said Dr. David Lott, one of the Mayo Clinic surgeons. “He still speaks with the same voice and Boston accent he had prior to the cancer.”
The Mayo Clinic said Kedian’s surgery marks the first time globally that doctors have performed such a transplant on a patient with active cancer. It is also only the third total voice box transplant in the United States.
The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 12,000 Americans will face a new laryngeal cancer diagnosis this year.
Kedian said he wants to advocate for more patients to have access to the voice box transplant surgery.
“I don’t understand why it took so long. You know, I’m the third one in the country, the first one with cancer,” he said. “I’m going to fight for more people to get surgery — whatever they need for their voice and their throat.”
