Eggs from tissue taken from five-year-old girls suffering from cancer have been successfully grown by scientists from Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Centre in Jerusalem.
The breakthrough offers a ray of hope to childhood cancer sufferers who are often left infertile by the treatment, and are compelled to rely on donated eggs and sperm or adopting to have their own family.
Infertility
Infertility is a condition wherein couples fail to achieve pregnancy or if the woman has been unable to carry a pregnancy that results in a live birth.
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The problem is especially difficult for children who develop cancer before they reach puberty because they cannot freeze their own eggs and sperm.
The scientists have managed to grow eggs in the laboratory from samples of ovarian tissue taken from girls as young as five.
Immature eggs can be removed from the tissue and grown to maturity in special culture.
![Artificial Insemination]( "Artificial Insemination")
Artificial Insemination is a medical procedure usually used to treat infertility. In this procedure, sperm is placed into a female''s vagina, uterus or fallopian tubes by artificial means.
The researchers further plan to conduct studies if they can be fertilised to create viable embryos.
These could then be frozen and stored for future use or the unfertilised eggs could be frozen using the latest techniques, which have proven more effective.
"As our ability to treat childhood cancers improves, it becomes more important that those survivors are able to live rich, full lives, including the ability have children," the Telegraph quoted Dr. David Adamson, the President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, as saying.
"This research helps move us to the goal of allowing paediatric cancer survivors to become parents," he added.
The study included 19 patients between the ages of five and 20 and on average they were able to retrieve nine eggs per patient and 34 per cent of them were successfully matured.
Source: ANI
RAS/SK
Immature eggs can be removed from the tissue and grown to maturity in special culture.
Artificial Insemination
Artificial Insemination is a medical procedure usually used to treat infertility. In this procedure, sperm is placed into a female''s vagina, uterus or fallopian tubes by artificial means.
Advertisement
The researchers further plan to conduct studies if they can be fertilised to create viable embryos.
These could then be frozen and stored for future use or the unfertilised eggs could be frozen using the latest techniques, which have proven more effective.
"As our ability to treat childhood cancers improves, it becomes more important that those survivors are able to live rich, full lives, including the ability have children," the Telegraph quoted Dr. David Adamson, the President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, as saying.
"This research helps move us to the goal of allowing paediatric cancer survivors to become parents," he added.
The study included 19 patients between the ages of five and 20 and on average they were able to retrieve nine eggs per patient and 34 per cent of them were successfully matured.
Source: ANI
RAS/SK
Genetics of Male Infertility
Encyclopedia section of medindia briefs you about the Genetics of Male Infertility
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