The non-stick coating that coats cookware like frying pans, known as Teflon, has a new purpose: Repairing a faulty windpipe.
A British physician used Teflon to repair a 70-year-old woman’s collapsed windpipe in the first procedure of its kind—although he’d also previously used Goretex, a waterproof fabric, to do the same thing. The Telegraph reports:
[Surgery patient] Mrs Butterwick, a former hotline operator… said she was amazed when she heard medics would use the substance in the procedure.
She said: “I said to doctors, but I just want to be able to breathe again, I don’t need to cook a full English on my windpipe.”
The three-hour operation seems to have put an end to Mrs. Butterwick’s 30-year cough, which was due to a condition known as Flat Trachea Syndrome.
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Image: flickr / Yogi
