Tissue for artificial vagina

04/11/2014

A very rare and congenital disorder is the "Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome". In this female patients have no or only an incomplete vagina. For the first time, US scientists and scientists from Mexico created a vaginal tissue replacement eight years ago. In a scientific review, today's results were summarized.

It is very rare that children have an underdeveloped or no vagina due to congenital malformations. About eight years ago, affected girls were given a vagina replacement by a medical research team. The replacement was made of real fabric.

All treated patients were according to a report in the journal „The Lancet“ already sexually active. They told the doctors that they had no pain and also experienced a natural sense of pleasure already. „Moistening and even orgasms were possible“, The researchers write in the paper "Tissue-engineered autologous vaginal organs in patients: a pilot cohort study" by Atlántida M Raya-Rivera et al.

Treatment successful after eight years
Medical scientists had taken vaginal tissue from young women aged 13 to 18 years. Out of this they bred smooth muscle and sheath cells in the laboratory. A scaffold was used to artificially build a vagina. This process lasted just seven days. Thereafter, the designed vaginas were implanted to the patients by means of surgery. „After eight years, the vagina is structurally and functionally normal“, the doctors write in their technical report.

The four women suffer from the Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome. In this birth defect no or only very incomplete trained genitals are present. The frequency is around 1-5: 10,000. So far, sufferers have been implanted a replacement from the gut or skin. But this form of therapy is only conditionally suitable, as it repeatedly came to infections according to researchers or the implant shrank. The new treatment showed a good course of therapy and gives hope for other sufferers. (Sb)

Image: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine