Monitoring of Human Uterus Transplantation With Cervical Biopsies: A Provisional Scoring System for Rejection

Abstract

Until now, absolute uterine factor infertility has been the major untreatable form of female infertility. Uterus transplantation has recently proven to be the first successful treatment for absolute uterine factor infertility, with demonstration of live births. In this study, live donation uterus transplantation was performed in nine women. In total, 163 cervical biopsies (149 protocol, 14 follow-up) were taken to detect histopathological signs of rejection. Based on experience from animal experiments, we used a three-grade scoring system to evaluate biopsies systematically. Nine episodes of rejection were diagnosed in five patients: grade 1 in six episodes, grade 2 in two episodes, and grade 3 in one episode. Treatment decisions were based on histopathology, and all rejection episodes were reversed after treatment. The biopsies were reviewed retrospectively, and immunohistochemistry was performed to characterize the inflammatory infiltrates. A borderline category was introduced to avoid overtreatment of patients. Based on our review of all biopsies, we put forward a simple grading system for monitoring of rejection and to guide immunosuppressive treatment in uterus transplantation.

Keywords: biopsy; classification systems; clinical research/practice; pathology/histopathology; rejection; vascularized composite and reconstructive transplantation.