Uterus reconstruction surgery performed

Chennai, June 22 (UNI) The city-based Aakash Fertility Centre and Hospital claimed to have successfully sreconstructed a uterus in a 30-year-old woman from Oman for the first time in the country.

Dr T Kamaraj and Dr Jeyarani Kamaraj, both Managing Directors of the Hospital, said Samiya Ali Mohammed, a teacher, was suffering from a congenital condition called Mullerian Dysgenisis, wherein there was little or no formation of uterus.

As a result, she could not have children even after nine years of marriage to Mohammed Ali, a businessman.

The disappointed couple approached them after having visited doctors in many countries.

''We performed a laparoscopy to find out the possibility of a uterus reconstruction surgery. Only two small nodules were present in the place of the uterus and it was not attached to the vagina at all. She was healthy otherwise,'' they added.

Reconstruction surgery for a rudimentary or absent uterus had been attempted twice world over and met with failure. Due to the couple's insistence, a team of doctors along with Dr Jeyarani Kamaraj and Dr Raja Maheswari performed an eight-hour surgery last July, during which the rudimentary nodules were extended and attached to the two ends of the fallopian tubes with the vagina.

A tube to increase the size of the cavity of the uterus was placed. She underwent hormone therapy to facilitate growth of the uterus, they said.

''The operation could have caused urogynaecological problems even if there was a small mistake,'' Dr Raja Maheswari said.

After the operation, the uterus grew to a length of 4.6 cm, compared to the normal nine cm, they claimed.

''Now she has regular cycles and her uterus has grown to a size where there is a possibility of her bearing children,'' they claimed.

''Other cases of uterus reconstruction have met with failure because it did not develop endometrium, the inner wall of the uterus which ruptures and forms regularly. But luckily, in this case, it is developing normally. At a later stage, we are planning to perform in-vitro fertilisation to see if the womb can hold a foetus,'' Dr Kamaraj, also a consultant in sexual medicine, said.

UNI