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ROME (Reuters) - 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.

Dr. Cinzia Marchese of Rome's Policlinico Umberto I hospital, giving details of the operations on Wednesday, told Reuters a 28-year-old woman who underwent the first such operation a year ago now has a healthy vagina.
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"She has got married and is living a normal life," said Marchese, whose study has been published in the journal Human Reproduction.

The second operation was carried out on a 17-year-old girl on Tuesday and the first signs are that the cells taken by biopsy from the area where her vagina should grow and provide mucosal tissue.

Mucosal tissue is found inside the vagina, the mouth and elsewhere in the body and has important attributes distinct from ordinary skin.

The two women had a condition called Mayer-Von Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome, or MRKHS for short, which affects an estimated one in 4,000 to 5,000 female infants.

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.

"Usually the syndrome is diagnosed when they are young and they try to have sexual intercourse for the first time and it hurts," said Marchese.

Often embarrassed to talk about it with their parents when they are young, MRKHS sufferers often "live the rest of their lives with no normal sexual life, even though they are normal women with normal feelings," she said.

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.

Such women, if they have healthy ovaries, have been able to achieve pregnancy by artificial insemination but would then need a surrogate mother to carry the fertilized eggs and give birth.

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Put me on wheels and I'll turn tricks.

Clever? Nah, I ran out of that years ago. But if you find this, let me know, k?
"The road goes ever on..." ~ Tolkien

In memory of my friend skip...
Go then, there are other worlds than these

"live the rest of their lives with no normal sexual life, even though they are normal . ."

Sounds like marriage to me.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

LOL, OF. Seriously, it is amazing what doctors can do today, isn't it?

Build a better vagina, & they will come...

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Plug me into somethin'

If the theory does not conform to the facts, then the facts must be discarded.

No good deed ever goes unpunished

Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level, & beat you with experience.

Again and again and again... hopefully



WW

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"I wondered, am I a lesbian, am I straight, or bisexual? Then I realized that I am just a slut.
So where's MY parade?"

---Margaret Cho

I suspect that the Italian Doctor will become high sought after.

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I like; a) taint brushing: b) a good cigar: c) our juices together; d) champagne: e) protein squirts; f)more of these; g)much more of these; h) Damn, slide that thing into me. Deep!
Adage: 2 things are certain in life; Death & Taxes. Therefore; God & Beelzebub had a meeting to fix the problem. A mighty storm prevailed for ages until finally they ended the storm with the agreement: From now on Anyone whom chooses doesn't have to die. "Everyone wins said Beelzebub. You get an eternally grateful bunch of worshippers praying forever for lower taxes as I goad & prod them forever with higher & higher taxation."

No, it's pronounced: FRAUNKENPUSSAY.

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Sex is one of nine reasons for reincarnation.The other eight are unimportant...Henry Miller