Swedish Surgeons Take Innovative Transplant Approach to Childbirth
Posted by on January 15, 2014 - 4:21pm

Swedish doctors are attempting an innovative surgery to give womb-less women the opportunity to give birth to their own children. Nine women in Sweden have received womb transplants and doctors intend to help these women (through in-vitro fertilization) become pregnant and carry their own children. Each of the nine patients was either born without a uterus or had it removed due to cervical cancer. This is the fist major experiment to test the possibility of live, biological births in womb transplant patients.

Many European countries prohibit using a surrogate to carry a pregnancy, which leaves women without wombs fewer fertility options. Womb transplants that can lead to successful pregnancies and births have been attempted before—in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Britain, and Hungary—but have been unsuccessful. Lead researcher, Dr. Mats Brannstrom said, “This is a new kind of surgery; we have no textbook to look at.” Press over these transplants has given hope to former cervical cancer patients (who lost a uterus to cancer) as well as to the one in every 4,500 women born without a womb.

The largest unknown for the scientists is how the pregnancies will proceed. The babies will need ample nourishment from the placenta and blood flow needs to be optimal—which are difficult variables to control for with womb transplants. Brannstrom and his colleagues intend to begin the in-vitro process in the next couple of months—testing their transplant success in their human subjects after finding victory in their mouse, sheep, and baboon subjects. If successful, this will be a major contribution to science, offering an alternative for women who have few childbirth choices.

Source: Associated Press

New Surgical Probe Reduces Multiple Lumpectomies in Breast Cancer Patients
Posted by on June 27, 2013 - 2:21pm

There’s a new “toy” in the surgical wing at the UC Irvine Medical Center that’s causing surgical oncologists to perform 56% less duplicate breast cancer surgeries.  It’s called MarginProbe, and it detects whether surgeons have removed all of a woman’s breast cancer cells during surgery, reducing the necessity of a second operation.  This sterile, handheld device sends electromagnetic signals to the bodily tissues surrounding a surgical incision, which are then transmitted and analyzed to determine whether any unhealthy tissue remains in the breast.

Before this device, 60% of lumpectomy patients were sent back to the operating room because some cancerous tissue was missed in the initial surgery.  Furthermore, these patients would have had to wait up to a week before pathologists could determine whether all malignant cells were removed.  Now, with MarginProbe, the tissue is analyzed instantaneously, while the patient is still in surgery, increasing the surgeon’s likelihood of eradicating the cancerous cells on the first try.

One surgical oncologist at UC Irvine, who had begun using the probe in March, said, “This new technology is a game changer for early-stage breast cancer surgery, and we’re already seeing better results!”  With lumpectomies serving as the standard procedure for two-thirds of the new breast cancer cases each year, this probe is bound to make a large splash in the effective treatment “pool.”  The FDA eagerly approved the MarginProbe after Dune Medical Devices developed the prototype in 2012.  UC Irvine was selected to use MargineProbe in a clinical trial, which included over 660 women nationally.  Well on its way to becoming a staple in the oncologist’s tool belt, the MarginProbe also promises to reduce healthcare costs by decreasing the necessity of follow-up surgeries, saving up to $6,000 per patient.  This new probe will prove to be instrumental in providing high quality patient care for women afflicted with breast cancer.

Source: HealthlineNews