Ovary Transplants – Frozen and Reimplanted later in Life

This is an area where I didn’t realize we had this potential, although it is tricky and still work in progress. The comments in the article state that the procedure needs to be 2 parts as the hormones that produce the eggs also have to function. A new technique has been developed to freeze the ovaries without the loss of very many eggs, which has also been an issue with older technologies. These procedures are and have been performed at Yale University. BD

AP) -- Two new techniques to preserve and transplant ovaries might give women a better chance to fight their biological clocks and have children when they are older, doctors announced Monday.

Women in their 20s or 30s could theoretically have an ovary removed and frozen, and then have it reimplanted years later when they are ready to have children.

"We are in the middle of an infertility epidemic," said Dr. Sherman Silber, director of the St. Louis Infertility Center in Missouri, one of the experts behind the research. "With these new techniques, we could dramatically expand our reproductive lifespan."

Silber and colleagues studied how many eggs were lost or preserved in fresh and frozen ovarian tissue of 15 young women before they had cancer treatment. The doctors found no difference in the number of eggs in fresh tissue and in ovaries frozen using a new ultra-fast technique.

Using the traditional, slow-freezing methods of preserving ovaries, about half of a woman's eggs were lost.