[Ovarian cryopreservation: clinical and ethical problems arisen further to study on cases of ovarian cryopreservation].
OBJECTIVE
An early ovarian failure and sterility, on patients often still young, may result from some of the anticancerous treatments. Ovarian cryopreservation is a research way for fertility restoration on patients who will have gonadotoxic treatment. The aim of our work was to study the cases of ovarian tissue preserved in our Department, enabling us to assess the clinical and ethical problems of this technique.


METHODS
A retrospective study was conducted from January 2001 onwards up to October 2005, on 14 patients, whose ovarian cortex was frozen our the University Fertility Center (Hôpital de la Conception, Marseille, France).


RESULTS
In our study, the patients' average age was 17+/-5.5 and the median was 14 years [13-24]. Eight patients were under 18 (11+/-3-years-old). The cryopreservation indications were especially haematological (N = 9). More than half of the patients (N = 8) had undergone a gonadotoxic treatment before ovarian cryopreservation.


CONCLUSIONS
Ovarian cryopreservation is still a recent technology in reproductive medicine. The future of ovarian tissue after thawing, with its different techniques of autograft, is still not consensual. Experimental research remains essential to improve the freezing protocols and ovarian transplant in human medicine.
Courbière
B
B
Centre d'Assistance médicale à la procréation, hôpital de la Conception, 147, boulevard Baille, 13385 Marseille cedex 05, France. blandine.courbiere@ap-hm.fr
Porcu
G
G
Saias-Magnan
J
J
Guillemain
C
C
Noizet
A
A
Michel
G
G
Grillo
J-M
JM
Gamerre
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015925:Cryopreservation / Q000941:ethics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery; D007938:Leukemia / Q000628:therapy; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy; D010053:Ovary / Q000502:physiology* / Q000637:transplantation; D027724:Reproductive Techniques, Assisted; D012189:Retrospective Studies