First U.S. Uterus Transplant Planned

"I don't think it's really a doctor's role to tell a patient that their values are not important. It's up to us as doctors to advise our patients and safely escort them to the best life that they can have," Del Priore said. Many women who lack a functioning womb suffer terribly, he said.

"It can be just heartbreaking," said Del Priore, a gynecological oncologist. He described a pregnant woman who started hemorrhaging after a car accident. "She was a newlywed, about to deliver a baby. Suddenly her husband is dead, her baby is dead and her uterus is gone. It's terrible suffering. I think she deserves every possibility."

Some ethicists and other experts, while expressing reservations, agreed, as long as doctors are reasonably confident of success and prospective patients fully recognize the risks.

"I think patients deserve autonomy," said Alan DeCherney, a fertility expert speaking on behalf of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. "As long as they know all the facts, it should be their choice."

After practicing in baboons and goats, doctors in Saudi Arabia reported in 2002 that they had performed the first human uterus transplant on a 26-year-old woman whose womb had been removed six years earlier because of hemorrhaging after the birth of her first child. The donor was a 46-year-old woman with an ovarian condition that required removal of her ovaries and uterus. Although blood clots forced surgeons to remove the organ after 99 days, doctors called the procedure a technical success.

Del Priore and his colleagues repeated the transplant in rats, pigs, rabbits and a rhesus monkey, in which they plan to try a pregnancy. They also showed that human wombs could be removed from deceased organ donors in the United States. The problem that occurred with the Saudi Arabian patient can be avoided, Del Priore's team thinks, by transplanting larger arteries with the uterus.

"I think we're ready," Del Priore said. "There is always more you could do. But knowing what my colleagues in the field have done and what we have done, we think it's absolutely doable."

Some noted that society assigns emotional value to many parts of the body, and transplanting a uterus may make many people uncomfortable.

"Organs can have tremendous symbolic meaning to people. It can vary from individual to individual and culture to culture," said Stuart J. Youngner, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University. "The uterus is one of those that has a lot of symbolic meaning."

But Del Priore and his colleagues said that at least some families of people who sign up as organ donors are willing to donate their uterus at death. And hundreds of women have inquired about undergoing the procedure, including between 40 and 50 who are currently being screened, Del Priore and his colleagues said.

After performing the complex surgery, doctors would wait probably about three months to make sure the organ is functioning and has been stabilized with anti-rejection drugs.

"We'd want to make sure it was ready to provide a safe environment for the child," said Jeanetta Stega, who is working with Del Priore.