New hope for women made infertile by cancer treatment
(sz) The first human embryo to be created after an ovarian tissue transplant may signal hope for hundreds of thousands of women made infertile by cancer treatment.
Researchers have been attempting to transplant ovarian tissue in humans for many years but this is the first time that they have obtained good quality eggs from a transplant and a viable embryo.
Kutluk Oktay, at Cornell University in New York, and colleagues took a strip of ovarian tissue from a 30-year-old woman with breast cancer before chemotherapy made her infertile. They froze the tissue and six years later transplanted it beneath the skin of her abdomen.
After three months, the tissue started functioning normally and produced eggs. Those that were viable were fertilised in the test tube, resulting in one promising embryo.
“This research represents a potentially significant reproductive advancement in two respects: first, women can preserve their fertility by freezing their ovarian tissue, and second, pregnancy may be possible even after the tissue remains frozen for a long time,” said Oktay. more…
From: »Hindustan Times«