MINERVA GINECOLOGICA

A Journal on Obstetrics and Gynecology

Indexed/Abstracted in: EMBASE, PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Emerging Sources Citation Index

eTOC

Minerva Ginecologica 2018 Apr 11

DOI: 10.23736/S0026-4784.18.04228-4

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Techniques for ovarian tissue transplantation and results

Jacques DONNEZ ¹ ✉, Diego D. MANAVELLA ², Marie-Madeleine DOLMANS ^{3, 4}

¹ Université Catholique de Louvain, Société de Recherche pour l'Infertilité (SRI), Brussels, Belgium; ² Gynecology Research Unit, Institut de Recherche Expérimentale et Clinique, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium; ³ Gynecology Department, Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc, Brussels, Belgium

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Fertility preservation has emerged as a field of growing interest thanks to increasingly effective cancer treatments in women. For young women with good prospects of surviving cancer, fertility preservation counseling before gonadotoxic treatment is imperative to offer them a potential chance of future childbearing. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation and transplantation rises as a strategy for fertility preservation, especially for prepubertal girls, adolescents and women in whom cancer treatment cannot be delayed. Numerous surgical techniques have been reported and are currently being used for frozen-thawed ovarian tissue reimplantation, but successful approaches all adhere to the same fundamental micro-surgical principles: (i) finding a well-vascularized orthotopic transplantation site (ii) fixing the ovarian tissue by means of stitches, interceed and/or fibrin glue. Orthotopic reimplantation has proven to be the most effective in terms of resumption of ovarian endocrine function in more than 95% of all reported cases, and fertility restoration in more than 40% in our series.

KEY WORDS: Ovary - Ovarian tissue - Fertility preservation - Ovarian tissue cryopreservation - Ovarian tissue transplantation techniques