This achievement, reported in the current issue of The Lancet, strikes me as a potentially monumental medical advance. In a procedure led by Cornell University reproductive endocrinologist Kutluk Oktay, frozen ovarian tissue removed from a 30-year old woman before she underwent cancer chemotherapy and then retransplanted back into her abdomen six years later resulted in reversal of her chemo-induced premature menopause and restored fertility. The transplanted ovarian tissue produced ova which when fertilized in vitro with her husband’s sperm developed into a normal embryo. Unfortunately, it did not proceed to a pregnancy when reimplanted into her womb, but the team is confident that it is only a matter of time before a successful pregnancy and a live birth result from this procedure. —CNN.
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In fact, in a related development, this has been achieved in a study with a rhesus monkey in Oregon. —BBC
It seems prudent for women in line to undergo procedures such as cancer chemotherapy which could make them infertile to begin banking ovarian tissue for freezing and eventual reimplantation. Until now, women have been able only to have eggs harvested and fertilized in vitro and the frozen embryos that result banked for potential future use. [Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think frozen unfertilized ova can be thawed to be fertilized years later.] The obvious shortcoming of the existing procedure is that the woman cannot have a child with any other potential future partner. It goes without saying that this can open up other Pandora’s boxes — for example, how about healthy women storing ovarian tissue so that they might conceive late in life, overcoming their menopause. Ethical concerns have arisen about the several extraordinary cases of women who have already had interventions to allow a pregnancy late in their lives; this could conceivably become much more common.
Even apart from fertility issues, it strikes me that the potential to reverse premature menopause with one’s own functioning ovarian tissue, without hormone replacement therapy, is enormous on its own accord.