Cleveland surgeons perform nation's first uterus transplant
CLEVELAND
(AP) -- Surgeons in Cleveland say they have performed the nation's
first uterus transplant, a new frontier that aims to give women who lack
wombs a chance at pregnancy.
In a statement
Thursday, the Cleveland Clinic said the nine-hour surgery was performed a
day earlier on a 26-year-old woman, using a uterus from a deceased
donor.
The hospital had long been planning for
such a surgery, announcing last fall a clinical trial that would
attempt 10 transplants. The hospital said it wouldn't release any more
details until a press conference next week, except to say the woman's
condition was stable.
Other countries have
tried womb transplants - Sweden reported the first successful birth in
2014, with a total of five healthy babies so far. Doctors there say the
still experimental treatment might be an alternative for some of the
thousands of women unable to have children because they were born
without a uterus or lost it to disease.
Others
have questioned whether such an extreme step would be a realistic
option for many women. It's fraught with medical risk, including
rejection of the transplant and having to take potent immune-suppressing
drugs for a transplant that, unlike patients who receive a donated
kidney or heart, isn't life-saving.
The
Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Andreas Tzakis said the risks aren't greater than
those for other transplants but is considered life-enhancing, like
transplants of the face or hand.
One important
difference: "Unlike any other transplants, they are 'ephemeral,'"
Tzakis said last year in a statement announcing the study. "They are not
intended to last for the duration of the recipient's life, but will be
maintained for only as long as is necessary to produce one or two
children."
Removing a uterus from a deceased
donor requires more than a normal hysterectomy, as the major arteries
also must be removed. The womb and blood vessels are sewn inside the
recipient's pelvis. Before closing the abdomen, surgeons check for good
blood flow and that the attachment to the ligaments is strong enough to
maintain a pregnancy.
If a woman is approved
for a transplant in the study, she would first have to have eggs removed
from her ovaries, like is done for in vitro fertilization, and then
freeze the embryos. Those could be implanted only 12 months after the
transplant heals, if it's successful.
The
hospital said it would attempt transplants in women with what's called
uterine factor infertility, meaning they were born without a uterus or
with uterine abnormalities that block pregnancy.
