Ovarian tissue and follicle transplantation as an option for fertility preservation

Abstract

Objective: To review and summarize data from the scientific literature on ovarian tissue and follicle transplantation as an option for fertility preservation.

Design: Review of pertinent literature.

Setting: University hospital.

Patient(s): Women having undergone ovarian tissue transplantation.

Intervention(s): None.

Main outcome measure(s): Review of the literature.

Result(s): Over the last decade, the field of ovarian transplantation and cryopreservation has significantly progressed, becoming applicable in humans. Indeed, fresh and frozen cortical ovarian tissue transplantations have been successfully reported worldwide, resulting in around 28 healthy babies. Although ovarian-tissue harvesting seems to be safe, the risk of reimplantation of cancer from ovarian cortical transplants cannot be estimated at this time. As a consequence, auto-transplantation of ovarian tissue in women having suffered from systemic hematological malignancies is not recommended. In these situations, reimplantation of isolated ovarian follicles might represent an interesting option in the future.

Conclusion(s): Although the clinical experience is limited, the robust results obtained open new perspectives for the management of premature ovarian failure resulting or not from gonadotoxic treatments.