NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — A team of 12 doctors led by Dr. Shailesh Puntambekar conducted the surgery which began at noon on Thursday and lasted for a little over nine hours at Pune's Galaxy Care Laparoscopy Institute. Pune is a major IT and automobile hub in the western state of Maharashtra. The younger woman was born without a uterus.
"The patient wanted to have her baby and was not ready for adoption or surrogacy. Since they knew about the uterus transplant, they approached us and accepted the surgery option," PTI quoted Dr. Puntambekar as saying on Thursday.
The patient's 44-year-old mother was found to be a medically suitable uterus donor for her. As of Friday, the hospital administration at the Galaxy Care Laparoscopy Institute told Sputnik via phone that the patient is under observation and stable. The staff, however, refused to comment further as it is too early to say anything conclusively.
"The younger woman — the patient — is now under observation and will remain in Intensive Care Unit for some days," hospital staff said.Not everyone is convinced of the surgery's efficacy and, secondly, its success. There is still no credible research and development on human experiments, Dr. Kaushal Kejriwal, General Surgeon in the Department of Laparoscopy, Rockland Hospitals, New Delhi, said.
"As I was reading media reports today, Sweden's Dr. Mats Brännström has raised doubts about the Pune transplant. While I will not go into that, there is very little and credible research and development done in the area with almost very few cases of successful human transplants. Let's wait for some weeks and see how it goes," he told Sputnik.
Dr. Brännström is head of obstetrics and gynecology at Sweden's Sahlgrenska Academy, at the University of Gothenburg. He led the world's first successful uterus transplant in Sweden in 2012 and the recipient of that operation gave birth to the world's first baby from a transplanted uterus in 2014.
