Manipal: Dr Mats Brannstrom, a pioneer in uterus transplantation addressed the media today on the occasion of the International Symposium on Fertility Preservation being organized by Department of Clinical Embryology, KMC Manipal. One in four thousand girls are born without an uterus worldwide. Dr Brannstrom is the first in the world to successfully achieve a healthy baby after transplantation of a uterus into a patient who was born without one.

Explaining his success story, Dr Brannstrom elaborated that the uterus was donated by the patient’s mother who was 61 years old. “This new development is a breakthrough and an alternative to surrogacy as it gives the patient an opportunity to experience the fulfillment of motherhood as surrogacy is not legally allowed in most countries” he said.

“This step comes after 13 years of thorough research by his team in animal models” explained Dr Brannstrom as he stressed that such interventions cannot be pursued without extensive research. Shedding more light on the specificities of the procedure, Dr Brannstrom said “The patient had to go through a waiting period of 12 months to avoid any complications of organ transplantation. After this period previously frozen embryos from an in vitro fertilization cycle were transferred. Unlike other organ transplants, these transplants are temporary and the uterus will be removed after 3-4 years once the patient has had children. This will avoid any further complications and lifestyle adjustments one has to go through with a lifelong organ transplant. A maximum of 3 children can be had in this time frame. It is advised that a parent would be the most suited donor for this procedure”. At present, Dr Brannstrom has had a success rate comparable to in vitro fertilization.

Dr Brannstrom has already been approached by a number of Indian couples wanting to pursue this line of treatment. He is presently working with a few centre’s in India and is presently evaluating the possibility of these patients for this procedure. He is hopeful that this procedure will gain popularity in the years to come and is expecting the first baby from uterine

transplantation in India by 2018. He hopes that India will be the first south Asian country to achieve this benchmark

Dr Pradeep Kumar, the Dean of KMC Manipal was also present at the meeting and he explained that “Organ transplantation has been used till date as a life saving technology but the unique feature is that for the first time this procedure will help a patient to give birth to a new life of their own”. Dr Satish Adiga, the convener of the Symposium elaborated on the complexities of this procedure and how it requires a multidisciplinary collaboration to achieve such a ground breaking technology.