A team of 24 medical professionals are going to be part of India’s first womb transplant procedure at Pune’s Galaxy Care Laparoscopy Institute (GCLI) on Thursday. A 24-year-old from Maharashtra, who was born without a uterus, will receive her mother’s uterus.
On Wednesday, doctors participated in a mock drill on cadavers to ensure the final procedure is executed with military precision.
Besides concerns of the high risk of rejection of the organ following the surgery, doctors also had another worry. “We have a four-hour load shedding every Thursday. We had to approach the MSEB (Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd) for uninterrupted electric supply during the procedure,” said Dr Shailesh Puntambekar, Medical Director, GCLI.
The two-stage surgery will begin at 9 am and last for eight hours. “Surgeons will extract the uterus from the mother in a four-hour surgery. For the next hour, doctors will clean it with a special solution,” said Dr Puntambekar.
The uterus will be removed laparoscopically from the donor, who is win her 40s, with a keyhole technique. A minimal access procedure pioneered by Dr Puntambekar, it’s known globally as the Pune Technique.
“In the second stage of the procedure, the uterus will be transplanted into the recipient. She has been married for three years, and has never menstruated,” Dr Puntambekar said.
On May 19, the hospital will perform a similar procedure on a 25-year-old from Gujarat.
Both procedures will be done pro bono, while the next four surgeries wwill be performed at a subsidised cost of Rs 1.5 lakh. Four patients have already been shortlisted for these surgeries to take place in the coming months.
A team from the Sassoon Hospital in Pune verified that the donor and the recipient were related as per the rules of the state. The State’s Directorate of Health Services has granted Galaxy hospital a five-year licence to perform uterine transplants.
Doctors said that while the donor will be able to take food orally 24 hours after the procedure, the recipient can go back to a solid diet two days after the surgery.
A year later, depending on the health of the recipient, she will undergo in vitro fertilisation (IVF) process to conceive.
TEAM ON BOARD
- Team includes 12 surgeons plus psychiatrist, nephrologist, cardiologist, intensivists, anesthesiologist and nurses
- No one will leave the operation theatre during the surgery for risk of infection
