Q. I am 19 years old. Three years back I had carcinoma of the ovary because of which my uterus and both the ovaries were removed. I have read a lot of articles about ovarian transplants being successful. Is it possible that uterus too can be transplanted or is there any such scope in near future?

A. The transplantation of uterus is not a very common occurrence in most established centres around the world. Nonetheless it is not technically difficult and may not induce strong immunological rejection phenomenon. In the literature, a Swedish group has successfully attempted animal studies and the transplanted animals were seen to have almost normal menstrual periods. In addition to the animal experimentation, a couple of clinical trials have been made primarily in Saudi Arabia and the results indicated menstruation initiation.

Q. I recently had my appendix removed laproscopically. Its been 4 days now and I am feeling much better. How long should I wait to resume normal activities? Can I work out, go to work where I lift things and run around a lot? My boyfriend is coming home for the weekend and we were wondering if we can have sex.

A. Working and light work out should be alright for now as long as there is no pain, but heavy work including sex should wait for at least a month to six weeks

Q. I am 40 years old, 105 kg in weight and 167 cm tall. I suffer from diabetes and hypertension. I am taking Glizid 40, Envas 2.5, and Glucoformin. My weight is not reducing. My sugar and BP levels are normal but I feel very hungry. I wanted to know if gastric bypass or gastric-banding surgery would be good for me?

A. You are requesting surgery for weight loss. You have to be evaluated for any endocrine cause for your excess weight. You should, under a nutrition specialist, have a balanced diet of 1300 calories. A physical trainer should supervise your exercise. You should persevere with this for

a period of six months. Only if you do not lose weight, then surgery can be considered. Banding of the stomach is the simplest and can be reversed. Gastric resection and enteric bypass is indicated in severe form of obesity (BMI >40). Your BMi of 37.6 places you in the borderline group and surgery would be indicated only if there is a concomitant heart disease or other metabolic factors to make the grade for morbid obesity.

Few surgeons are doing this surgery in India, using the laparoscopic technique. One has to carefully consider surgery as the last option as surgery and the consequent weight loss can cause a number of problems.