A New York hospital is making efforts to offer the nation’s first uterus transplant. This would be an experiment that may allow women, whose wombs were removed or are defective, to bear children.The wombs will come from dead donors, like most organs, and would be removed after the recipient gives birth so she would not need anti-rejection drugs her whole life.The hospital’s ethics board has approved the plans, although the hospital’s president warned women not to build false hopes as the transplant is not expected “any time in the near future.”Several experts cautioned that much more research must be done, and one declared that this bold concept is “not really ready for prime time.”The New York doctors just did a six-month trial run, showing that wombs could be obtained from organ donors, and now are screening potential recipients.“I believe it’s technically possible to do,” said lead physician Dr. Giuseppe Del Priore.However, some scientists think they should produce more healthy offspring in animals before trying it on women.Others note about a thousand women have already become pregnant after kidney, heart and other transplants, with good results. They view uterus transplants as a way to help women whose only option now for a biological child is through a surrogate mom.“If this is a desire for a woman who’s had surgical removal of a uterus, I would think this would be something she’d really want to pursue,” although the risks would have to be carefully weighed, said Julia Rowland, director of the National Cancer Institute’s Office of Cancer Survivorship.The transplant project is being led by Del Priore, a cancer specialist, and Dr. Jeanetta Stega, a gynaecologic surgeon, at the New York Downtown Hospital, part of the New York-Presbyterian Health Care system.Organ transplants usually are performed to save lives, but now, they are being done to improve quality of life. Hand transplants and the recent partial face transplant in France are examples.Besides surgical complications that can prove fatal, the main risk in such operations is the need for lifelong immune-suppressing drugs to prevent organ rejection. However, if a uterus had to be removed, it would be serious but probably not life-threatening like loss of a liver or heart, proponents say.A uterus transplant has only been attempted once—in Saudi Arabia in 2000. That womb came from a live donor and had to be removed three months later because of a blood clot. Stega thinks that transplanting more blood vessels and using better anti-clotting drugs would lessen this risk.-MARILYNN MARCHIONE Hope, but more experiments neededBOLD EXPERIMENT: A New York hospital hopes to do the first uterus transplant in the US, although not “in the near future.” An attempt in Saudi Arabia in 2000 failed.WHO WOULD BENEFIT? Women who have had hysterectomies or whose wombs are damaged or defective, preventing them from bearing children.WHAT CRITICS SAY: More experiments in animals are needed, and there are many less-risky options, such as adopting or using a surrogate mother.—AP
