Daughters get mums’ uteruses in historic ops
Specialists at the University of Goteborg completed the surgery over the weekend without complications.
However, they say they will not consider the procedures successful unless the women become pregnant after their observation period ends a year from now.
“We are not going to call it a complete success until this results in children,” said Michael Olausson, one of the Swedish surgeons told the Associated Press. “That’s the best proof.”
He said the daughters started in-vitro fertilisation, or IVF, before the surgery.
IVF uses hormones to stimulate the ovaries, which the women already had, to produce eggs. Scientists would fertilise the eggs with sperm in a lab, before freezing the embryos. The frozen embryos would then be thawed and transferred if the women are in good health after the observation period, Dr Olausson said.
Uterine transplants are new, with the first successful one conducted in Turkey in 2011.
“One of the women had previously had her own uterus removed after undergoing treatment for cervical cancer. The other woman was born without a uterus,” said a statement from the university.
Mats Braennstroem, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the college and the leader of the research team said: “The women who received the uteruses are doing well but are tired after the surgery.
“The mothers who donated their uteruses are already up and walking and are going to be able to go home within a few days.”
Dr Braennstroem said the women would have to wait one year before trying to get pregnant.
“So we will only really know if this is successful in 2014” if and when the women have given birth to a child, he said.
He would not speculate on the chances of the women becoming pregnant, but noted that in regular IVF treatments the chance of delivering a baby after an embryo transfer was 25 to 30%.
He said the transplanted uteruses would be removed after the women have had “up to two children”, so they can stop taking the immunosuppressant drugs that helps their bodies accept the transplant.
Dr Olausson said doctors expected the same risk of rejection as seen with other organ donations, of around 20%.
The women — whose names were not revealed — were selected for the procedure after a lengthy examination process to ensure that they and their partners were fertile.
Their mothers were used as donors because of the “theoretical advantage” of having a close relative as a donor, Dr Olausson said, and “because the uterus had proven its functionality in being able to bear a child”, Dr Braennstroem added.
Eight more women are due to undergo the procedure in Sweden during the autumn and spring.
