It almost sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but in actual fact, ovary transplantation is very real and already in successful use.
If you haven’t heard of this procedure, here is a brief explanation of what it entails:
In ovary transplantation, a woman’s ovary is either removed and then transplanted into another woman’s body, or an ovary is removed, then frozen, and transplanted back into the same woman’s body at a later time.
This may be the result of cancer, for instance, when a woman will be undergoing radiation treatments that will possibly or even probably render her sterile.
By removing her healthy ovary prior to beginning the radiation treatments for the cancer, and cryogenically preserving it, then the ovary may be transplanted back into the woman’s body after the treatments are all finished and the cancer is gone.
This technique offers hope of fertility to many women who have undergone treatment for cancer or other diseases that subsequently left them sterile.
Besides transplanting whole ovaries, much work is being done in freezing sections of ovarian tissue, with very good results.
In 2004, Dr. Sherman Silber, Director of the Infertility Center of St. Louis T St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterton, MO, and author of the book “How to Get Pregnant,” transplanted strips of ovarian tissue from one identical twin into her prematurely menopausal sister.
The sister has gone on to give birth twice!
According to Dr. Silber, identical twins are 5 times more likely than the rest of the female population to suffer ovary damage, so this revolutionary procedure could be immensely beneficial to twins.
Dr. Silber says that with freezing ovaries or ovarian tissue, a woman can literally stop the hands of time on her biological clock by freezing them.
This may be great news for women who want to wait until later in life to start a family, because it would allow waiting without sacrificing the quality of the eggs.
With older mothers or women wanting to conceive over the age of 35, it isn’t the age of the mother so much as the age of her eggs that often presents difficulties.
By freezing the ovaries, and hence the eggs, am older mother would still have fresh, youthful eggs when her ovary or ovarian tissue was transplanted back into her body.
Ovary transplantation may be the wave of the future and make motherhood possible to many women who would not otherwise experience the joys of having a baby!
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