Hadassah Successfully Preserves Hope For Fertility
for Girls Facing Chemotherapy
Using the same process that adult female cancer patients can select, a multi-disciplinary team of Hadassah physicians has succeeded to obtain and freeze eggs from the ovarian tissue of young girls about to undergo chemotherapy, giving them hope to preserve their fertility.
Women facing chemotherapy who wish to preserve their fertility, can undergo the surgical removal of an ovary, known as an Oophorectomy, after which the ovary is sliced and frozen under special conditions to a temperature of -197 Celsius, about –110 Fahrenheit. After treatment and recovery, the ovaries can be re-implanted in the woman's body and function normally.
Using the same technique, over the last three years, the Hadassah team treated eight girls – ages 5 to 20 – who were about to receive chemotherapy. They or their parents wanted to preserve their fertility. Gynecologist Dr. Ariel Revel, Pediatric Oncologist Dr. Miki Weintraub, Pediatric Surgeon Dr. Eitan Gross and Pediatric Anesthesiologist Dr. Avishag Kadari also proved that even among very young girls, they could extract ova (eggs), mature them in the laboratory and then freeze them.
They published their positive results a few months ago and presented paper on their findings today at a press conference in Lyon, France, during the annual international conference of the European Society for Fertility.
“At any age,” Dr. Revel said, “when there is concern about any significant damage to the ovary, that’s the time to consider freezing it and the freezing the ova."
For further information:
Dr. Ariel Revel, 972-50-56782943
Yael Bossem Levy, Hadassah Spokesperson – 972-2-50-5280597