The first little girl was born in Verona from a pregnancy obtained by reimplantation of ovarian tissue. The little girl, born naturally, is the daughter of a woman who had her ovarian tissue cryopreserved before starting chemotherapy. The 36-year-old mother fell ill with a rare malignant tumor, Ewing's sarcoma, at the age of 21. At the time, when she began the process with doctors at the Sant'Orsola Polyclinic in Bologna, she was advised to begin a process of fertility preservation, considering that the therapies would have taken away her reproductive capacity . 15 years later, she overcame the tumor and decided to contact the Center for Medically Assisted Reproduction at the Integrated University Hospital of Verona to have the ovarian tissue re-implanted. Currently, there are just over a hundred births using this process worldwide. The chances of success of the process are in fact estimated at around 40%.
What is ovarian tissue cryopreservation?
Cryopreservation of ovarian tissue is an advanced medical technique that helps preserve the ovarian and reproductive function of children and young women suffering from oncological diseases. Specifically, ovarian tissue is collected after diagnosis and before the start of antitumor therapies and frozen. Once the disease is overcome, the material is thawed and re-implanted into the patient.
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