Cryopreservation of Ovaries Helps Cancer Sufferers have Children

Ovarian Cancer Patients with Improved Option of Bearing Children afterTreatment

A Danish study has discovered that freezing ovarian tissues prior to the patient undergoing potentially damaging cancer treatment could help women with a better opportunity of becoming pregnant. The survey considered 41 women having ovarian tissue frozen, prior to undergoing cancer treatment which could have damaged their fertility and had the thawed tissue again implanted.

From this group, 32 of them preferred to have a child and ten of them were successful. Out of the total of 14 pregnancies, eight occurred naturally while six were the cause of IVF. Besides these, there were two abortions with one miscarriage within the group.

 In any of the cases researched, implantation of the tissue was not connected to a relapse of cancer though three of the patients had experienced unrelated relapses. Professor from the Laboratory of Reproductive Biology in the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Claus Yding Anderson informed `The Guardian’ that for the first time they had a group of patients who had seemed to benefit from this and none of those women ever had cancer as a result of transplanting the tissue.

 Besides providing the women with an improved option of bearing children after treatment, the transplanted tissue stopped the early onset of menopause in most of the women, enabling one young patient to begin puberty.

Ovarian Transplants – Safe & Effective

In the study, it was found that the once again implanted ovarian tissue `remained functional for almost ten years in some cases, lasting only for a short period in others’. Some of the first cases studied still tend to have functional ovarian tissue.

 The study concluded that the cryopreservation of ovarian tissue was expected to become incorporated into the treatment of young women with cancer who may tend to run the risk of losing their fertility. But an NHS report with regards to the study observed that `they don’t know how ovarian transplant tends to compare with the other kinds of fertility treatment, like the extracting and freezing eggs prior to cancer treatment’ and that the study does not show whether any of the women could have been pregnant without a transplant.

A study showed that ovarian transplants could be safe and effective way for women who could have had cancer, to have their own children.

Prompt Doctors to Offer Services to Many

The Danish doctors provided the process to 32 women who underwent cancer therapy and had left them at risk of infertility. The patients had their ovaries frozen before the treatment for cancer and their own ovarian tissue was later on re-implanted once they were restored back to their normal health with ten of the women having successful pregnancies.

According to the UK experts, the results could prompt more doctors in offering this service to many more women with this condition. Though ovary freezing as well as transplantation is available in the UK, it is not public, partly owing to concerns that the transplants may tend to carry cancerous cells.

However, researcher Dr Annette Jensen informed that her team’s study which was published in the journal Human Reproduction seems to be reassuring. She added that as far as they know, this seems to be the largest series of ovarian tissue transplantation undertaken worldwide and these discoveries indicate that grafted ovarian tissue is effective in restoring ovarian function in a safe and effective manner.

The fact that cancer survivors can now be capable of having a child of their own is an immense quality of life boost for them.