First pregnancy after robot-assisted womb transplant

The first woman who got a uterus transplant supported by robotic surgery in 2017 is expected to deliver in September. There have been eight births before hers, but after uterine transplants using traditional open surgery.

Robot-assisted keyhole surgery in which five openings, each one centimetre long are made, enable surgeons to work with high precision.

The operating environment is also different, whereby the surgeons sit close to their covered monitors using joystick-like tools to control the robot’s arms and surgical instruments that release the uterus.

A hand movement from the surgeon can be converted to a millimetre-sized movement in the donor’s abdomen, allowing accuracy that minimises disturbance to both the patient and her uterus.

LESS INVASIVE SURGERY

The multi-hour operation ends removal of the uterus through an incision in the abdomen and its immediate insertion into the recipient through traditional open surgery.
“We haven’t saved as much time as we thought we would, but we gained in other ways. The donor loses less blood, the hospital stay is shorter, and the patient feels better after surgery,” said professor of obstetrics Mats Brännström, of the less-invasive surgery.

Previous research has involved transplants from living donors related to the recipient – usually mother and daughter.

Thirteen babies have been born from transplanted uteri. The first eight were born after transplants at the Sahlgrenska Academy, two in the United States (born December 2017 and February 2018) and one each in Brazil (December 2017), Serbia (June 2018), and India (October 2018).