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Review
. 2025 Jun;30(6):1051-1059.
doi: 10.1007/s10147-025-02757-7. Epub 2025 Apr 22.

Safety of laparoscopic surgery for ovarian tissue cryopreservation in pediatric patients

Haruhiro Kondo #  1 , Seido Takae #  1 , Shigeyuki Furuta  2 , Miki Sakamoto  3 , Juma Obayashi  2 , Dai Keino  4   5 , Kentaro Nakamura  1 , Kunihide Tanaka  2 , Takuya Kawaguchi  2 , Mika Mori  5 , Natsumi Furuya  1 , Mikiko Nishioka  1   6 , Yuki Suzuki-Takahashi  1 , Chiai Nagae  5 , Yodo Sugishita  1 , Yuki Horage-Okutsu  1 , Tetsuya Mori  5 , Naoki Shimizu  5 , Hiroaki Kitagawa  2 , Nao Suzuki  7
Affiliations
Review

Safety of laparoscopic surgery for ovarian tissue cryopreservation in pediatric patients

Haruhiro Kondo et al. Int J Clin Oncol. 2025 Jun.

Abstract

Background: Ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) is recognized as the only option for fertility preservation in children. However, surgery for OTC in pediatric patients carries risks differing significantly from those in adults, and little is known about its safety. As a representative fertility preservation center in Japan, we investigated safety and feasibility of surgery for OTC in children.

Methods: The survey period was from November 2015 to November 2024. Data were collected retrospectively from the electronic medical records of 0- to 17-year-old girls who underwent OTC at our hospital. Age, primary disease, height, weight, comorbidities, operation time and blood loss, surgical complications, and changes in blood data of subjects were verified.

Results: Mean age of the 110 patients was 8.9 ± 5.0 years. Of the patients, 89 (80.9%) had malignant diseases, with leukemia (n = 21. 19.1%) as the most common underlying disease. Twenty patients (18.1%) had recurrent disease and 84 (76.4%) were undergoing surgery during chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Mean body mass index was 17.0 kg/m2, and some patients were thin and had delayed physical development. Ninety-two patients (83.6%) showed low white blood cell counts immediately before surgery. Laparoscopic unilateral oophorectomy was performed in all cases, with an average operation time of 55.5 ± 14.3 min and an average blood loss of 2.9 ± 8.4 g. One patient (0.9%) developed fever as a surgical complication.

Conclusions: These results suggest that laparoscopic surgery for OTC in children can be performed safely with the cooperation of experts from multiple medical fields.

Keywords: Child cancer; Fertility preservation; Laparoscopic surgery; Ovarian tissue cryopreservation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflicts of interest: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. Ethics approval: All legal guardians and patients (16 years old) gave written, informed consent in keeping with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the study was approved by the institutional review board of the university (approval no. 3424; UMIN: 000040576). Informed consent: All study participants (and/or their guardians) gave written informed consent to the study. Except for infants and very young children (under around 3–4 years old), patients under 16 years old were provided with information through illustrations and/or animations to obtain informed assent.

References

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