http://www.nature.co.../040628-15.html
Frozen ovary restores fertility
Cancer sufferers could postpone pregnancy
30 June 2004
HELEN R. PILCHER
A cancer patient who had part of an ovary removed, frozen and then reimplanted after the disease had been treated, is now pregnant. The 32-year-old woman, who is expecting a baby girl in October, is the first to fall pregnant after such a procedure.
Scientists are hailing the announcement as a breakthrough for those left infertile by cancer treatment. But some are concerned that the technique could be used by healthy menopausal women who choose to delay motherhood for reasons of convenience.
The patient developed Hodgkin's lymphoma seven years ago, so doctors removed and froze samples of her ovarian tissue before beginning cancer treatment.
Last year, with the disease in remission, one sample was thawed and implanted below one of her remaining, non-functioning ovaries. She then became pregnant naturally. However, it has not yet been confirmed that the fertilised egg came from the graft. It is possible then that the woman's remaining ovary may have spontaneously started to work again.
Marie-Madeleine Dolmans, from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, will discuss the research at the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting in Berlin today.
Although the baby has yet to be born, this is still a landmark finding, says reproductive biologist Kutluk Oktay from Cornell University, New York, who has also been working towards storing and reimplanting ovarian tissue. "The technique could help give cancer patients a much more positive attitude," he says.
