A woman born without a natural vagina has successfully received an artificial transplant made with skin from her inner thigh.
The procedure was necessary because the anonymous patient from Argentina was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, an abnormality affecting 0.02% of women. The syndrome is complex, but in most cases while the external genitalia are normal those affected are unable to conceive or carry children.
In this case the woman was born without a vagina, womb or cervix. Commonly a vaginoplasty is performed using part of the colon, but doctors said they had to use the skin from her thigh.
The Daily Mail reports that the surgeons in San Martin, Buenos Aires, performed the surgery in 2012. It was made public after being reported in the journal Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
The news follows a report last month (see above) that four women were implanted with lab-grown vaginas after suffering from the same syndrome.
The procedures at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine in the United States were reportedly successful, though one patient admitted it "wasn't easy thinking that a part of your body was going to be made in a laboratory. It was difficult to understand"