Nine women have received transplants of uteruses donated by their mothers or other living relatives in an ongoing trial of an experimental procedure at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
The transplants began in September 2012 and the women are said to be doing well. Some of the women’s uteruses have already showed signs of healthy functioning and although some of the patients experienced minor rejection issues, none required intensive care after surgery, the researchers said. The hospital had initially planned to perform ten surgeries in total, but one woman had to drop out for medical reasons.
The women, most of whom are in their 30s and were either born without wombs or had them removed because of cancer, will soon attempt to become pregnant via IVF. The surgery did not connect the uteruses to the women’s fallopian tubes, so the women will not be able to conceive naturally. However, they do all have functioning ovaries and their eggs were used to create embryos that were cryopreserved before the operation.
Dr Yacoub Khalaf, director of the Assisted Conception Unit at Guy’s Hospital, London, said ‘what remains to be seen is whether this is a viable option or if this is going to be confined to research and limited experimentation’.
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Read the full, original article: Womb transplants successful for nine women
Additional Resources:
- The womb’s strange epigenome, National Geographic
- Could genetic diseases be cured in the womb? LiveScience
