Chemotherapy and radiation are cancer treatments that help save lives, but when administered at a fertile age they can also destroy a woman's ovarian function.
Fortunately, science is making great strides, and a group of Danish researchers has just developed a artificial ovary that when implanted in the woman's body, could allow you to get pregnant naturally. This research has been presented at the 34th Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, which is being held these days in Barcelona.
Cancer and fertility of women
About two percent of women of reproductive age who are diagnosed with cancer and go through chemotherapy and radiation treatments, they run the risk of losing their ovarian function and, therefore, their fertility.
These women experience early menopause, and when they overcome cancer and want to be mothers, they encounter this sad reality.
Given this situation, two possible medical treatments arise that help achieve pregnancy:
On the one hand, there would be the process of vitrification of ovules, which consists of freeze healthy eggs before going through the process of radiation and chemotherapy. Subsequently, once the patient has overcome the cancer and wishes to be a mother, the eggs will be thawed and in vitro fertilization performed.
The second option would be to perform a transfer of ovarian tissue, a procedure that consists of remove the ovarian tissue before cancer treatment, freeze it and reimplant it after treatment In this way, the woman could get pregnant naturally.
Although this procedure is largely safe and can give good results (in fact, in Babies and More we have talked about it on occasion), it is used less frequently than vitrification, since there is a risk that the ovarian tissue removed before treatment contains malignant cells to make the cancer reappear when it is reimplanted again in the woman's body.
This occurs mainly with certain types of cancer such as leukemia, hence the American Society for Reproductive Medicine considers that This procedure should be applied with great caution, and after a detailed study of each specific case.
Now, a group of scientists from Copenhagen has just developed a new method so that the woman can achieve natural pregnancy, after a cancer treatment in which her fertility has been affected. It would be an artificial ovary, a safe procedure that could give great results.
What is the artificial ovary?
The first thing that scientists did through a chemical process, was strip the ovarian tissue of all its cells, leaving only a bare "scaffolding" composed of proteins and collagen and, therefore, free of tumor cells.
This "andiamaje" was subsequently seeded from follicles (with ovules inside) at an early stage, which developed and matured naturally emulating the function of the ovary.
"The follicles form during fetal life, when there is still no cancer. In addition, they are surrounded by a basement membrane that does not allow cancer cells to enter. Therefore, the follicles, unlike ovarian tissue cells, do not contain cancer"- explained Dr. Susanne Pors, co-author of the study and doctor at the Reproductive Biology Laboratory of the Rigshospitalet Hospital in Copenhagen.
The researchers noted that This artificial ovary can keep human eggs alive for weeks, which is a hope to be used with women who have lost their ovarian function by chemotherapy treatments.
At the moment, the artificial ovary has only been tested in rodents, and according to Dr. Pors "it could take five to 10 years until it is used in clinical trials in humans."Researchers believe that implanted artificial ovaries could help, in addition to cancer patients, women with other conditions that require hard therapies, such as multiple sclerosis and beta thalassemia blood disorder, and may even work in cases of early menopause.
For his part Daniel Brison, scientific director of the Department of Reproductive Medicine at the University of Manchester, has described the artificial ovary as an "interesting and novel" procedure, but has also called for calm, because although it is likely that we are facing a pioneering treatment, "It will not be possible to know until the data of this research group have been reviewed and published in a scientific journal".
Via CNN
In Babies and More You can become a mother after breast cancer: life makes its way, First twins born by reimplantation of ovarian tissue after cancer, the first baby is born in France thanks to an ovarian tissue implant, Cryopreservation of semen, ovules and embryos: when this technique is used and how long the frozen samples last
