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Womb transplants may become a reality in as little as 2 years

A transplant would allow women without a womb to bear a child

Womb transplants could potentially help women who were born without a womb or who suffered uterine damage have a baby.

Nearly 15,000 women in the U.K. currently have either been born without a uterus or have had it removed due to a disease like cancer. However, new research into the process of transplanting a womb into rabbits may carry over to human research in as little as two years.

Dr. Richard Smith of London’s Hammersmith Hospital recently presented his latest research at an Atlanta reproduction summit. Dr. Smith hopes—with more funding and animal research—to be able to successfully transplant a womb into a human patient.

Smith and his team performed the transplantation on five donor rabbits and five recipients. Using a special “vascular patch technique”, the team attached the new wombs to the recipients.

The new technique had to be implemented as previous attempts failed due to blood clots or unsuccessful aortal attachment. Of the five rabbits, two of them lived for up to 10 months. After the rabbits died, the team examined the rabbits and found that the surgery was successful, although the rabbits were not able to become pregnant after being mated. Dr. Smith said that additional research needed to be done with fertilized embryos implanted in the rabbits’ wombs.

However, funding has been difficult to come by according to Smith. The group has set up a charity called “Uterine Transplant U.K.” to raise £250,000 for additional research.

“With appropriate funding we could run through all the tests needed to get this into humans within two years,” stated Smith.

“Nobody should move this into a human setting until this procedure has been made as safe as possible. You could never in all conscience carry off this procedure if there was a chance of death or disability.”

Other doctors are skeptical of the two-year target set by Smith’s team.

“I think there is a big difference between demonstrating effectiveness in a rabbit and being able to do this in a larger animal or a human,” said Tony Rutherford, the chairman of the British Fertility Society.

“I don’t think it is something that is going to be available in clinical practice for some years to come.”

A womb transplant was tried once before on a woman by Saudi Arabian doctors in 2000, but the womb had to be removed after only four months due to blood supply failure.

         

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Alcohol reduces effectiveness of IVF for having a baby

Alcohol intake of even small amounts decreases the likelihood of pregnancy says a new Harvard medical study.

A new Harvard study of over 2,500 couples—quizzing them on their drinking habits before beginning IVF treatments—has shown that even small quantities of alcohol disrupt the effectiveness of the treatments.

Dr. Brooke Rossi led the study for the Harvard team, and after reviewing the data, the team found that both men and women that drank six or more units of alcohol a week “significantly reduced their likelihood of pregnancy.”

The study found that men who drank six or more units of alcohol a week reduced the effectiveness of IVF treatment by 14 percent while women who drank the same amount reduced their chance at motherhood by 18 percent.

“In general, women are told they should stop drinking when they are trying to achieve pregnancy,” Rossi said.

Dr. Rossi also reported that particularly strong effects were noted when women drank white wine and men drank beer. Women who drank one to nine units of white wine a week had a 23 percent increased chance of embryo implantation failure. Men who drank one beer on a daily basis contributed a 38 percent increased chance of embryo implantation failure.

Both the British Fertility Society and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence already have developed guidelines directing women to discontinue alcohol use throughout the pregnancy.

“The link between alcohol and conception is an area where the evidence is not clear-cut. It may well be that couples who are already subfertile are more affected by alcohol that those who are perfectly fertile,” said Tony Rutherford, chairman of the British Fertility Society.

“If you are going to have IVF, my recommendation would be that it makes sense to avoid alcohol all together, from three months beforehand. This is further evidence to suggest that alcohol does have an impact and that those women who try for a baby should think about their lifestyle choices.”

“Eggs and sperm take at least three months to develop so women have got to stop smoking, reduce alcohol consumption or, if you are overweight, correct that weight, that far ahead if you want to maximize your chances of conception.”

         

IVF hope increased as new screening test doubles conception rate

The odds for IVF success are currenty less than one in four procedures and with around 37,000 woman in Britain every year undergoing IVF, this will be welcome news.

British scientists have developed a new method, which screens embryos for genetic defects and greatly increases the chance of women becoming pregnant, even in their late thirties. Genetic screening also substantially cuts the risk of conditions like Down’s syndrome.

To date more than 20 babies have been born after using the technique and the wishes of the scientists involved are that it could eventually become standard practice on the National Health Service.

One in six couples faces problems conceiving. However, with this new method, experts achieved a birth in four out of five attempts in older women whose previous IVF attempts had been unsuccessful.

“Astonishing”, was how the team, from Oxford, hailed their results. However they admitted they used the candidates most likely to succeed anyway for the treatment, (The method requires women to produce embryos which progressed to the five day stage).

Stuart Lavery, consultant gynaecologist at the IVF unit at Hammersmith Hospital, said the latest results were still ‘quite amazing when compared to conventional approaches’.

This technique, by the Reprogenetics UK laboratory in Oxford for the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine, took 42 women with an average age of 39 who had endured at least one failed IVF attempt.

The experts tested five-day-old embryos for chromosome abnormalities which could prevent them implanting in the womb, or cause miscarriage.

More than twice as many embryos ended in a pregnancy using the technique compared to a control group of similar patients. In addition, multiple embryos were transferred at the same time.

Although some women miscarried, the birth rate was 80 per cent, compared to 60 per cent in the control group.

Allan Pacey, secretary of the British Fertility Society, said: “Embryology is really crying out for something like this.

“We really haven’t moved on from the science of just looking down the microscope and seeing if an embryo looks good on the basis of some rather loose criteria.

“This is very exciting technology but we do need proper randomised control trials to see if it does what says on tin.”

The screening technique is currently too new to be considered for funding by the NHS and is only offered privately in a handful of IVF clinics in Britain, costing up to £11,000.

The findings will be presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) conference in Atlanta this week.

The first baby was born in Britain using a similar technique last month, after his parents underwent 13 failed IVF attempts.