ROME, May 30 (UPI) -- Doctors in Italy used stem cells to reconstruct vaginas for two patients suffering from rare malformations.
The vaginal tissue was grown using stem cells from the patients' own bodies, ANSA said Wednesday.
In the first case, a 28-year-old woman received a tiny square of mucous membrane a year ago and has since grown a vagina. A 17-year-old girl underwent the same procedure Tuesday in Rome's Umberto I hospital.
Approximately one in every 5,000 female infants is born without a vagina, the news service said.
Cinzia Marchese, the researcher who grew the tissue, said the procedure is a first step toward possible breakthroughs in creating intestinal, oral and eye tissues.
ANSA said an account of the first operation will be published in the journal Human Reproduction.
