Women with significant fertility problems may have a new way to allow them to become pregnant: a womb transplant. Nine women in Sweden have received womb transplants from Dr. Mats Brannstrom and a team from the University of Gothenberg as part of a groundbreaking fertility project.

The new surgery targets women who are unable to conceive because they don’t have a uterus, either due to having had a hysterectomy from cervical cancer or because they were born without a uterus. With the transplant, using organs from living relatives, the uterus is not connected to the Fallopian tubes so the women cannot conceive naturally. However, they can receive IVF treatment using their own eggs.

The women, mostly in their 30s, are some of the first to undergo this surgery to see if it’s possible to conceive with a transplanted womb. Previous womb transplant attempts in Saudi Arabia and Turkey have failed.

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Sourced from: bbc.co.uk, Nine Swedish women receive womb transplants

A study published in the European Journal of Neurology concludes that people with multiple sclerosis (MS) may have an increased risk of developing any type of cancer, particularly breast cancer.

The research contradicts earlier studies that have looked at the link between cancer and autoimmune diseases, so researchers say more work needs to be done to establish a true link.

For the study, researchers assessed data from the National Health Insurance System of Taiwan, involving 1,292 patients who were diagnosed with MS between 1997 and 2010. Each patient was matched with four patients without the condition.

Results showed that people with MS were 85 percent more likely to develop cancer than the controls. And, their risk of developing breast cancer was twice that of controls.

The researchers say this suggests that MS patients may need to be monitored closely for early detection of cancer.

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Sourced from: ScienceDaily, Patients With MS May Be at Increased Risk of Developing Cancer

People have different levels of sensitivity to pain because of the way their brains are structured, concludes a study published in the journal Pain.

Researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center looked at 116 healthy volunteers and tested their pain sensitivity by asking them to rate their pain when a small area on their arms or legs was heated to 120 degrees F. Then the patients underwent an MRI scan to get images of their brain structures.

The results showed that the people who rated their pain intensity the highest had less grey matter in regions of the brain associated with internal thoughts and attention control.

The researchers suggested that people who are good at keeping their attention focused may also be better at keeping their pain under control.

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Sourced from: Medical News Today, Sensitivity to pain linked to differences in brain structure