The operation gives new hope of motherhood to the hundreds of thousands of women who are desperate for a baby.
Those who could ultimately benefit include the 100,000 British women who have gone through an early menopause, as well as those whose fertility has been compromised by cancer treatment - as it could now be possible to freeze healthy ovaries for use later in life.
The doctor who carried out the transplant, Dr Sherman Silber, has for some years been specialising in transplants between identical twins, because there is a very low risk of organs being rejected.
Ovary transplants from non-identical twins would have to be accompanied by heavy doses of immune system-suppressant drugs to ensure the organs are not rejected, meaning pregnancy would be less likely.
But those women who manage to freeze their own ovaries in advance would have no rejection problems.
For infertile women, receiving a new ovary has many benefits not provided by IVF treatment, as the working organ produces useful hormones.
The London woman involved in the case had stopped having periods 22 years before her transplant - but her twin had given birth twice. She agreed to provide one of her ovaries for the transplant, which was conducted by microsurgery expert Dr Silber at the Infertility Center of St Louis in Missouri, America, last year.
In a difficult procedure, he used keyhole surgery to remove the walnut-sized ovary from the donor before implanting it in her sister. Within three months the recipient began to ovulate normally, and after five months she had hormone levels the same as her sister. As a result of the increased hormone production, the osteoporosis she had been suffering improved.
And around a year after the transplant, the woman found she was pregnant.
Three years ago one of his infertile American patients, Stephanie Yarber, 24, of Arkansas, gave birth after receiving a transplant of some ovarian tissue from her identical twin, but the birth due this week will be the first in the world after the transplant of an entire ovary.
Dr Silber believes the transplanted organ could continue working for up to ten years.
November 2008 |
