Doctors Successfully Implant Viginas Grown From Stem Cells
A New Study Shows that Vaginas and Noses Can be Successfully Grown
The possibility of growing new limbs and body parts has fascinated scientists and doctors for centuries. According to the medical journal, “The Lancet,” that day may have finally arisen. They reported a new new study that has shown that vaginas and noses can be regrown using cells taken directly from the patient.
This technique could help treat disorders that disfigure the body, such as cancer, injury, and serious burns. This technique could potentially replace reconstructive surgery.
However, this technique is not quick. According to “The Lancet,” the study followed four Mexican teenagers for three years, taking tissue the size of a postage stamp from each. Each teen was born without a functioning vagina and this tissue was used to craft a new one.
The article stated that the new vagina showed …”variables in the normal range in all areas tested, such as desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and painless intercourse.”
This breakthrough technique took three years of work to craft each vagina. It required culturing the cells, expanding them, and creating what the study called “biodegradable scaffolds” on which to build the vagina. The vaginas were then allowed to mature in an incubator before being surgically grafted to the body of the teens.
Each patient was followed up for a period of eight years. The vagina appeared to function properly at each follow up examination.
In addition, the patients’ responses to a Female Sexual Function Index questionnaire showed they had normal sexual function after the treatment, including desire and pain-free intercourse.
“Tissue biopsies, MRI scans and internal exams using magnification all showed that the engineered vaginas were similar in makeup and function to native tissue, said Atlantida-Raya Rivera, lead author and director of the HIMFG Tissue Engineering Laboratory in Mexico City, where the surgeries were performed.
No long-term postoperative somplications were noted. A different study noted in the same issue of “The Lancet” discusssed new noses built in Switzerland for two men and three women.
“Although this is a small pilot study, the results show that vaginal organs can be constructed in the lab and used successfully in people,” said study author Anthony Atala, director of the institute for regenerative medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre in the US.
The potential of this technique is already being throughly explored by doctors around the world. Various doctors around the world have crafted windpipes, bladders, and even blood cells and implanted them in patients. This process could be expanded to more complex organs, such as the lungs.
WAKE FOREST INSTITUTE FOR REGENERATIVE MEDICINE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
Vaginas are among the latest body parts to be grown in a lab from the patient’s own cells. Here, Dr. Yuanyuan Zhang of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine Scientists shows the process that was used in the study.
Source
http://www.thestar.com/life/2014/04/11/vaginas_and_noses_can_be_grown_from_cells_studies_find.html
Doctors implant lab-grown vaginas in four teenage girls with rare disorder
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/doctors-implant-lab-grown-vaginas-teen-girls-article-1.1753415#ixzz2ybPJbKcH
Lab-Grown Vaginas, Noses Herald New Options for Patients
http://www.webmd.com/women/news/20140410/lab-grown-vaginas-noses-herald-new-options-for-patients?page=2&rdspk=active