Ovarian Tissue Successfully Transplanted in Sisters

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Donnez's team knew that because the sisters' HLA type allowed their genetically different cells to coexist successfully, there was no need for immunosuppressive treatment to prevent the ovarian transplant from being rejected.

After six months, Teresa Alvaro started menstrual bleeding. That, along with her hormone levels, confirmed that ovarian function had been restored. Her menstrual cycles have continued ever since, the researchers reported.

After a year, doctors took two oocytes from her ovary and fertilized them with her husband's sperm. One of the embryos developed to the two-cell stage and the other to the three-cell stage. However, both stopped developing, so they were not transferred to her uterus.

Why the embryos didn't develop is not clear, but this also happens during normal cycles of IVF, Donnez said. However, it's too early to know whether this procedure would ever be successful in letting a woman get pregnant and give birth to a live baby, he said.

"The first thing the gynecologist and oncologist need to think about before chemotherapy is to propose cryopreservation [freezing] of ovarian tissue before chemotherapy. That's the first option," Donnez said. "The second option is cryopreservation of embryos," he said. "But even when tissue isn't preserved, we have some hope that transplanting ovarian tissue will restore function."

Donnez hopes in the future that immunosuppressive drugs can be developed that will not be toxic to embryos, making ovarian tissue transplantation a wider option for women.

One expert is unsure about the practicality of ovarian transplantation.

"This is another step in ovarian transplantation," said Dr. Richard J. Paulson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and chief of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles.

Paulson is skeptical, however, that the technique is very practical. "Why on earth would you bother to do this, when you can clearly do egg donation from the one sister to the other," he said. "That would have had a higher success rate -- instead, they are goofing around with this transplantation of the ovarian cortex."

More information

The American Society of Reproductive Medicine can tell you more about infertility.