Dive Brief:
- The Cleveland Clinic announced last Wednesday it had performed the first uterus transplant in the U.S. in a nine-hour surgery on a 26-year-old recipient, Stat reports.
- The patient was reported to be in stable condition Thursday, but no further details were released.
- The surgery was performed as part of the Cleveland Clinic's clinical trial, announced last November, that will perform uterus transplants on 10 women with uterine factor infertility (UFI), meaning they either had no uterus at birth, lost their uterus, or have one that does not function.
Dive Insight:
Although the procedure is still considered highly experimental, it has successfuly been performed in Sweden by a team from the University of Gothenberg on four women who have since given birth.
Once a patient has received a uterus, the protocol is to heal for a year before the patient's previously frozen embryos are thawed and implanted one at a time until pregnancy is achieved.
The procedure stands out from other transplants in that it is intended to be temporary. The Cleveland Clinic says they "will be maintained for only as long as is necessary to produce one or two children," and then removed so anti-rejection drugs can be stopped.
The Cleveland Clinic says the trial involves not only the transplant, but also following the recipients through high-risk pregnancies, during which they will take anti-rejection drugs, give birth via cesarean sections, and have hysterectomies.