Woman is given first womb transplant

[Kala]

Woman is given first womb transplant
By David Derbyshire, Medical Correspondent
(Filed: 07/03/2002)

A YOUNG woman left infertile after an emergency hysterectomy was given the world's first womb transplant, it was disclosed yesterday.

She was implanted with a healthy uterus taken from a 46-year-old living donor.

Doctors who carried out the pioneering surgery claimed success, although the womb was removed three months later - because of problems with its position, not because it was rejected.

The woman had two normal periods before the transplant was taken out, the doctors said.

Leading British gynaecologists described the operation as a milestone.

If it can be improved, it could help some of the 15,000 British women who want children but who cannot because of problems with their wombs or because they have had hysterectomies.

The operation, reported in the International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, took place two years ago at King Fahad Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The woman, who is now 28, had a life-saving hysterectomy in 1996 after she suffered massive bleeding following a caesarean section.

Doctors used a uterus from a woman with ovarian cysts who needed a hysterectomy.

The uterus "responded well" to hormone treatment. The lining began to grow thicker after exposure to oestrogen-progresterone therapy and when the hormone was withdrawn the woman experienced menstrual bleeding.

"Unfortunately, she developed acute vascular thrombosis 99 days after transplantation and hysterectomy was necessary," the doctors reported.

Dr Wafa Fageeh, who led the team, said: "Further clinical trials and development of the surgical techniques could make uterine transplantation useful in the treatment of infertility, especially in communities where the surrogate mother concept is unacceptable from a religious or ethical point of view."

The doctors needed approval from the Islamic jurisprudence council.

Dr Louis Keith, the editor of the journal, said reproductive organs were the "last frontier" of transplantation science.

Transplanting a womb is far more complicated than transplanting other organs. For example, whereas the kidney is connected to two relatively large arteries, the womb is plumbed into six smaller blood vessels.

Because hysterectomies are relatively common in older women, there should be no shortage of donors.

The age of the donor makes little difference to the health of the uterus as long as she has not gone through the menopause.