A health clinic is spearheading a trial of uterus transplants for women with an infertility disorder.
"There are women who won't adopt or have surrogates, for reasons that are personal, cultural or religious," Dr. Andreas G. Tzakis, the director of solid organ transplant surgery at a Cleveland Clinic hospital in Weston, Florida told the New York Times.
The transplant, unlike a heart or liver transplants, will be temporary. After the women give birth to one or two children, the uterus will be removed so the candidate does not have to continue taking anti-rejection drugs after having children.
Candidates for the trail are women between the ages of 21 and 45 who were either born without an uterus or had their uterus removed, according to the Cleveland Clinic's website.
Approximately 1 in 4,500 newborn girls are born without a uterus or an underdeveloped reproductive system, a condition known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome.
As an experiment, the clinic will preform the procedure 10 times and track the number of successful live births from the transplant before deciding to continue, the New York Times reported.
The transplant will be the first of its kind in the United States, however, Sweden is the only known country to successfully preform the surgery, the University of Gothenburg notes on its website. The babies were delivered premature but overall healthy, according to reports.
