Hopeful Start for First Uterus Transplant Surgery in U.S.

CLEVELAND — Just minutes after the patient’s name was placed on the waiting list for a transplant, details about a matching donor popped up.

“I was shocked,” said Dr. Andreas G. Tzakis, the director of solid organ transplantation at theCleveland Clinic’s hospital in Weston, Fla. “I really considered it an act of God.”

Less than 24 hours later, on Feb. 24, the patient, a 26-year-old woman from Texas, became the first in the United States to receive a uterus transplant, in a nine-hour operation here at the Cleveland Clinic. Born without a uterus, she hopes the transplant will enable her to become pregnant and give birth.

“I have prayed that God would allow me the opportunity to experiencepregnancy, and here we are at the beginning of that journey,” she said on Monday at a news conference, where doctors revealed details of her operation. She gave only her first name, Lindsey, to protect her family’s privacy. She and her husband, Blake, also 26, have three adopted sons.

The New York Times interviewed Lindsey in November as a candidate for an experimental uterus transplant, but it was not clear then whether she would be selected. At that time she did not want even her first name to be mentioned.

Uterus transplant surgery, still experimental, is meant to help women who want to become pregnant but cannot because they were born without a uterus, suffered damage to it or had to have it removed. Between 3 percent and 5 percent of women of childbearing age worldwide are estimated to be infertile for these reasons, and about 50,000 women in the United States are thought to be potential transplant candidates.

The Cleveland Clinic’s ethics panel has given the hospital permission to perform 10 uterine transplants in women ages 21 to 39, as an experiment. Officials will then decide whether to continue. Another patient is on the waiting list, and the clinic is still screening possible candidates. So far, 250 women have been evaluated.

Two other medical centers in the United States — Baylor UniversityMedical Center at Dallas and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston — have announced similar pilot programs, according to theUnited Network for Organ Sharing, which vets transplant programs and oversees the nationwide distribution of organs from deceased donors.