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First womb transplant 'within two years'

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Hope: The first womb transplant could take place within the next two years

New hope was offered today to thousands of women unable to have children.

Doctors at a London hospital aim to carry out the world's first successful womb transplant within two years.

The breakthrough would offer an alternative to surrogacy or adoption to women who are infertile or have had hysterectomies.

Current fertility techniques, such as IVF, cannot help those whose womb has been damaged by disease or surgery or who were born without a uterus.

The team from Hammersmith Hospital, along with colleagues in New York and Budapest, aim to transplant a womb from a dead donor.

Richard Smith, a gynaecological cancer surgeon, said: "We have had stunningly good results in the laboratory with good blood supply to the organ. We hope to move into human subjects within the next one to two years.

"The transplant would only be temporary, maybe for two or three years to allow the woman to have children, and then it would be removed to avoid the risks associated with a lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs."

Michelle Harvey, from support group Couples
Having Infertility Problems Solved, said: "There are so many people who have come to the end of the line with IVF and have been told there's no hope. This is a breakthrough for women like them.

"It sounds drastic but people get to the stage where they would try anything."

Mr Smith has been working towards the operation for eight years and is in the final stages of experiments.

His team have transplanted wombs from one animal to another with some success.

Any child would have to be delivered by Caesarean section because the transplanted womb is unlikely to be able to withstand the forces involved in natural contractions and labour.

Previous transplant attempts have involved a womb donated by a close relative of the recipient in the hope that this offered the best chance of it being accepted by the latter's immune system.

But Mr Smith found that this technique, which would have allowed mothers to donate their wombs to their daughters, was not feasible as not enough tissue could be removed from the donor to guarantee a good blood supply when the organ was transplanted.

There are 15,000 women in Britain who have no uterus and up to 200 of them each year opt to have children through surrogacy - where another woman carries the baby for them.

In order to carry out a human transplant the Hammersmith Hospital team would need funding of about £250,000 a year.

Currently their work is funded by charitable donations from research and education organisations.

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