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New study freezing of ovarian tissue is safe
If infertility is a threat as a result of cancer treatment, women can prevent it by freezing ovarian tissue and later fulfill their desire to have children. Although this method is still pretty, a new study gives reason for hope.
Freeze sperm and ovarian tissue
Thanks to improved treatment methods and earlier diagnoses, the chances of cancer treatment have increased significantly in recent decades. However, the treatment of cancer is often associated with infertility. But if people still want children, they can be prevented. This allows women to freeze ovarian tissue and men sperm before treatment. The method is still relatively new, but in recent years ovarian tissue has been successfully retransplanted in several cases. Recent research now gives reason for more hope.
Image: lom123 - fotolia New method led to numerous births
Researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital now report in the journal "Human Reproduction" that the removal of ovarian tissue before therapy and a subsequent retransmission in one study led to at least one child in every third woman. In addition, the cancer recurrence rate had not been increased. According to the dpa news agency, Annette Jensen's team evaluated the data of 41 Danish women, who were re-using extracted ovarian tissue at an average age of 33 years.
It was found that the original cancer in these patients due to the treatment not - as some experts feared - returned. Thirty-two of the women wanted to become pregnant, ten of them got at least one child. A total of 14 babies were born, either naturally or after fertility treatment.
Survival in cancer increased significantly
The researchers write in their article that the chances of surviving cancer at a young age have increased significantly in recent decades. But as cancer treatment can render infertile, preserving fertility is increasingly becoming part of modern cancer therapies. So far, oocytes are often frozen, but their extraction requires ten to twelve days of pretreatment.
The new method, in which physicians, before the chemo- or radiation treatment, remove an ovary or parts thereof, freeze and later re-implant the tissue into the body, has only been used for some years. According to Danish researchers, more than 36 children were born worldwide after such treatment, including in Germany. For example, it was reported in 2012 that a child was born in Nuremberg through transplanted ovarian tissue.
Little knowledge about chances of success
However, there are still few insights into the chances of success. According to the researchers, the transplanted tissue has been active in some women for about ten years, in others it was no longer functional after a few months. The reasons for these differences are unknown. In three of the 41 women who received a tissue graft, the cancer returned after transplantation. However, as the scientists write, there is no indication that there is a connection between treatment and relapse.
German expert is critical
Christian Thaler, member of the board of the German Society for Reproductive Medicine (DGRM), recently said that preserving fertility in cancer therapies is very important as many young women are now being healed. However, the classical method is not the cryopreservation of ovarian tissue, but that of unfertilised egg cells.
The freezing of oocytes has long been established and accordingly safe and "should always be the first choice." Thaler, who leads the Hormone and Fertility Center at the University of Munich, commented critically: "The transplantation of ovarian tissue, however, is always still experimental, and so far only a few children have emerged from it. I am worried that this procedure will be overstated in view of successful individual cases. "The Danish researchers, however, believe that" the freezing of ovarian tissue as a method of maintaining fertility "is gaining importance. (Ad)