Twelve Australian women will become their country's first recipients of uterus transplants next year, including a mother-to-daughter transplant.
A five-year research project has received ethics approval to take place at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Royal Women's Hospital in Sydney. Part of a clinical trial to provide longitudinal data on the viability of these transplants, the procedure may offer hope for women born without a uterus, as well as women who have had their uterus removed for medical reasons.
'There are other options for them like surrogacy or adoption, but for many women, that isn't enough to fulfil their deep desire to actually be able to carry a child themselves,' explained Dr Rebecca Deans, the gynaecologist leading the trial.
One such woman is Kirsty Bryant, 29, who underwent an emergency hysterectomy in 2021 after suffering a major haemorrhage giving birth to her first child. Her 53-year-old mother Michelle Hayton is her donor.
'I'm going to be growing my own child in the same womb I grew in, which is pretty hard to get your head around' said Bryant.
The project will use uteruses from six live donor transplants and six deceased donors. Donors who have not reached menopause are preferred.
To ensure the women receiving the uteruses do not reject the transplant, strong immunosuppressant medications must be taken throughout the trial and the uteruses will be removed at the end of five years. This gives the women the possibility of having two live births.
The surgeries from donors last four to ten hours, while recipient surgeries take two to four hours.
The first Australian surgery will be overseen by Professor Mats Brännström, a Swedish surgeon who performed the procedure successfully for the first time in 2012 (see BioNews 674). Subsequently, the first live birth from a woman who received a uterus transplant was in 2014 (see BioNews 775). Results from over 70 procedures worldwide since have led to more than 40 successful births. However, slightly above-average rates of pre-eclampsia and premature births have been recorded from babies born from transplanted uteruses (see BioNews 1147).
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