March 8, 2002	Friday	Zilhaj 23, 1422

LONDON, March 7: Saudi doctors reported the world’s first human womb transplant on Thursday but leading fertility experts were quick to question the ethics and success of the operation.

The Saudi pioneers said their work offered hope to the childless. But other specialists said surgery had yet to work in animals, let alone people, and counselled against false hopes.

The operation on a 26-year-old, who had lost her own womb after a complex birth, took place two years ago and was deemed a success by the Saudi doctors. But the transplanted womb had to be removed 99 days later because of blood clotting.

Dr Wafa Fageeh, who led the surgical team at the King Fahad Hospital in Jeddah, reported the research in the International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics.

He said the technique could be a useful treatment in the future for infertile women without a womb whose only other chance of having children was through surrogacy.

“Further clinical trials and development of the surgical techniques could make uterine transplantation useful in the treatment of infertility, especially in communities where the surrogate mother concept is unacceptable from a religious or ethical point of view,” Fageeh said in a statement.

US fertility experts said that although the womb was not an essential organ for life, the procedure was a new frontier in human organ transplants.—Reuters