Introduction: The field of fertility preservation (FP) in females has extended with increasing medical and public awareness. Significant scientific achievements provided solid proofs indicating that female fertility can be preserved over time. A commonly practiced technique for FP is ovarian tissue cryopreservation, however, there is shortage of publications describing clinical experience, success rate and outcomes data of this procedure.
Methods and patients: Ovarian tissue was harvested from 500 cancer patients undergoing potentially sterilizing treatment. In all patients tissue was stored using slow freezing method. Only patients that requested to restore fertility and were healthy were enrolled to the study. Through examination to exclude possible presence of cancer cells was performed in all cases according with the specific diagnosis of each patient.
Results: Fourteen patients underwent transplantation of cryopreserved ovarian tissue. The diagnosis was Hodgkin's lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Leukemia, sarcoma and breast cancer. Patient's age at transplantation was 22-45 years. Recovery of ovarian function was documented in 13/14 patients. Repeated IVF cycles (up to 10 cycles) resulted in mature oocyte retrieval fertilization and embryo transfer. Nine pregnancies were reported 6 post IVF and 3 spontaneous. Six healthy children were born and one woman conceived 3 times.
Discussion: The results of this study performed in one center using the same laboratory and surgical procedure indicate that the use of stored ovarian tissue to restore fertility is effective and results with repeated live birth normal babies, both following IVF and with natural conception. Repeated of IVF cycles collecting fresh oocytes indicate the long term survival of ovarian grafts and the ability to produce health fresh oocytes. Correlation of these results with egg or embryo freezing for fertility preservation indicate higher number of egg collected and higher chances to conceive.
