CLEVELAND — The recipient of the nation’s first uterus transplant
said Monday that she prayed for years to be able to bear a child, and
is grateful to the deceased donor’s family and surgeons who’ve given her
that chance.
Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic
said Monday that the 26-year-old woman is recovering well after
receiving the uterus late last month. The experimental surgery is part
of a new frontier in transplantation that, if it works, 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.
Lindsey and her husband Blake stand with Cleveland Clinic medical staff as they announce Monday she was the nation's first uterus transplant patient. |
The woman, identified only as Lindsey to protect her family’s privacy,
appeared briefly at a news conference with her husband. She said she
already is a mother to three “beautiful little boys” adopted through
foster care and that she was told when she was 16 that she wouldn’t be
able to bear children.
“From that moment on, I’ve prayed that God would allow me the
opportunity to experience pregnancy,” she said. “And here we are today,
at the beginning of that journey.”
The woman must wait at least a year to ensure the new uterus is healthy
enough to try getting pregnant through in vitro fertilization, using
embryos frozen ahead of the operation. To monitor the transplant, she
will undergo monthly examinations.
Other countries have tried womb transplants. Sweden reported the first
successful birth in 2014, with a total of five healthy babies from nine
transplants so far. The transplant team at the Cleveland Clinic, which has been exploring the possibility of performing uterus transplants for 10 years, trained with the Swedish surgeons.
The hospital has screened more than 250 women to identify 10 who
qualify for the clinical trial, those lacking a functional uterus but
with healthy ovaries that produce eggs. They must understand the risks —
complications from abdominal surgery, plus the possibility that the
transplant will fail — and that it’s experimental.
“We must remember a uterine transplant is not just about a surgery and
about moving a uterus from here to there. It’s about having a healthy
baby,” said Cleveland Clinic surgeon Dr. Rebecca Flyckt.
Dr. Andreas Tzakis, program director of Transplant Center, says "we did it " as the Cleveland Clinic announced the nation's first uterus transplant patient. |
One concern, both medically and ethically, is the effect that necessary anti-rejection drugs
have on a developing fetus, the doctors said Monday. Dr. Andreas
Tzakis, a transplant surgeon who is leading the study, said many women
who’ve had kidney transplants have delivered healthy babies while taking
anti-rejection drugs.
Births will be by cesarean section. The transplanted uterus will be
removed after the woman has had one or two babies so that she won’t need
those drugs the rest of her life.
The United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees U.S. transplants,
said Baylor University in Dallas and Boston’s Brigham and Women’s
Hospital have also been approved for uterine transplants.
A uterus donation requires a separate consent from a deceased donor’s
family, like donations for other new procedures such as hand and face
transplants, said UNOS chief medical officer Dr. David Klassen.
The donor for the Cleveland Clinic
transplant was described as a healthy woman in her 30s who’d had
children and had died suddenly. Sweden has used living donors for
transplants there, but the Cleveland Clinic trial, to avoid any risk to a
donor, decided to start with donors who have died.
The Cleveland Clinic
patient, Lindsey, said she was grateful to that donor’s family. “They
have provided me with a gift that I will never be able to repay.”
Dr. Mats Brannstrom of Sahlgrenska University Hospital
at the University of Gothenburg said the Cleveland surgery marked the
13th transplant worldwide. According to Brannstrom, Saudi Arabia and
Turkey previously reported attempts and China performed one in November,
but Sweden so far has the only births.
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