Reuters - MSNBCMay 30, 2007 1:12 p.m. CT
ROME - An Italian doctor has reconstructed vaginas for two women born with a rare congenital deformation, using their own cells to build vaginal tissue in the lab for the first time.
...
Girls with the syndrome are born with no vagina. The patient often has a normal uterus, ovaries and external secondary sexual organs such as breasts, but cannot have sexual intercourse or give birth.
...
So far, surgeons have been able to correct the condition by reconstructing a vagina out of grafted skin or from intestinal tissue, but the surgery is highly invasive, lengthy and painful. And it takes a long time to grow a normal mucosal wall.
...
"What we do is to take a little biopsy of 0.5 cm from the place the vagina should be, " Marchese said. They used an enzyme to break down the tissue and then let the immature cells, called stem cells, generate new, mucosal tissue on their own.
I looked around but I haven't seen this posted or discussed (maybe I just missed it). I figured that this kind of news would have kicked up a firestorm. Maybe not...
But anyway, if I'm reading this correctly, this may mean that SRS is going to reach a whole new level pretty soon.
