CLEVELAND — Six doctors swarmed around the body of the deceased organ donor and quickly started to operate.The
kidneys came out first. Then the team began another delicate
dissection, to remove an organ that is rarely, if ever, taken from a
donor. Ninety minutes later they had it, resting in the palm of a
surgeon’s hand: the uterus.
The operation was a practice run. Within the next few months, surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic expect to become the first in the United States to transplant a uterus
into a woman who lacks one, so that she can become pregnant and give
birth. The recipients will be women who were born without a uterus, had
it removed or have uterine damage. The transplants will be temporary:
The uterus would be removed after the recipient has had one or two
babies, so she can stop taking transplant anti-rejection drugs.
Uterine
transplantation is a new frontier, one that pairs specialists from two
fields known for innovation and for pushing limits, medically and
ethically — reproductive medicine and transplant surgery. If the
procedure works, many women could benefit: An estimated 50,000 women in
the United States might be candidates. But there are potential dangers.
The
recipients, healthy women, will face the risks of surgery and
anti-rejection drugs for a transplant that they, unlike someone with
heart or liver failure, do not need to save their lives. Their
pregnancies will be considered high-risk, with fetuses exposed to
anti-rejection drugs and developing inside a womb taken from a dead
woman.
Eight women from around the country have begun the screening process at the Cleveland Clinic,
hoping to be selected for transplants. One, a 26-year-old with two
adopted children, said she still wanted a chance to become pregnant and
give birth.
“I crave that experience,” she said. “I want the morning sickness, the backaches, the feet swelling. I want to feel the baby move. That is something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.”
She
traveled more than 1,000 miles to the clinic, paying her own way. She
asked that her name and hometown be withheld to protect her family’s
privacy.
