STOCKHOLM – A 36-year-old man who had tracheal cancer has received a new lab-made windpipe seeded with his own stem cells in a procedure described as the first successful attempt of its kind, officials in Sweden said Thursday.

The Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm said the surgery was performed June 9, and that the patient is on his way to a “full recovery.” He will be released from a hospital today.

Karolinska said the patient, whose late-stage cancer had almost fully blocked his windpipe, had no other options because no suitable donor windpipes were available.

Windpipe transplants have previously been performed using donor windpipes and the patients’ own stem cells. But the surgery in Sweden is the first to use a man-made organ.