Womb transplants may soon be a viable option for women struggling with infertility, reports the Daily Mail.
Fully-functioning transplant wombs capable of sustaining pregnancies could be available as early as next year, according to Professor Mats Brannstrom of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, who has spent more than a decade experimenting on small animals in order to perfect the necessary surgical techniques.
So far, only a single successful womb transplant has been carried out on a human female. In 2000, doctors in Saudi Arabia were able to transfer a working womb from one woman to another. It functioned for only three months before having to be removed due to the formation of blood clots.
"During the last decade, there has been considerable progress in surgical techniques," say Dr. Brannstrom, who predicts hospitals could begin performing the operation within a year.
Because of the risky immunosuppressant drugs needed to keep the body from rejecting the transplanted organ, the donor uterus would need to be removed after one or two pregnancies.
"For women who cannot bear a child, there is always surrogacy, but I would think the ultimate joy for them is carrying their own baby, and this increases the chances of doing just that," said a spokesperson from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the U.K.