Study: Freezing ovaries could preserve a cancer patient's fertility

A baby wearing a hat. — (Image credit: iStock)

Danish researchers have found that ovarian transplants could restore a woman's fertility after chemotherapy and radiation.

Women who undergo cancer treatment typically have a less than 5 percent chance of getting pregnant afterward, NPR reports. "Obviously the thing that interests them the most is to survive cancer," said Claus Yding Andersen, a reproductive physiologist who helped conduct the study. "But immediately after that they would say they are really interested in maintaining their fertility."

An ovarian transplant involves surgically removing all or part of one ovary, freezing it, then transplanting it back once cancer treatment is finished. Andersen and his team focused on 32 Danish women who had completed cancer treatment, had an ovarian transplant between 2003 to 2014, and wanted to become pregnant; 10 women had a total of 14 babies, with six conceived through in vitro fertilization. Andersen said the tissue can function for five to 10 more years, and there was no evidence that an ovarian transplant increases the risk of a recurrence of a woman's cancer. The study was published Tuesday in the journal Human Reproduction.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.