Paris - In a world first, a woman has given birth after surgeons implanted ovarian tissue that had been removed when she was a child, doctors reported Wednesday.
The girl was coming up for her fourteenth birthday when she was diagnosed with acute anaemia, needing powerful, ovary-damaging treatment.
Before the therapy, her right ovary was removed and frozen in fragments in the hope that it could be used if she ever wanted to become a mother.
A decade later, surgeons in Belgium thawed some of the fragments and reimplanted them. A healthy son was born last November.
Several babies have been born from tissue taken from adult women, but this is the first success with tissue removed before puberty, doctors reported in the journal Human Reproduction.
"This is an important breakthrough in the field because children are the patients who are most likely to benefit from the procedure in the future," said Isabelle Demeestere at Erasmus Hospital at Brussels Free University, whose team carried out the transplant.
"When they are diagnosed with diseases that require treatment that can destroy ovarian function, freezing ovarian tissue is the only available option for preserving their fertility."
The patient, born in the Republic of Congo, was diagnosed with sickle-cell anaemia, a genetic blood disorder, when she was five.
After she emigrated to Belgium at the age of 11, doctors found the disease was so severe that she needed a bone marrow transplant.
The procedure requires chemotherapy or radiotherapy to disable the immune system so that it does not to reject the marrow.
The transplant succeeded, although the girl had to continue with immuno-suppressive drugs for a further 18 months, and her left ovary failed.
Ten years later, the woman -- who wishes to remain anonymous -- wanted to have a family.
At this point, Demeestere's team offered their help.
They grafted four ovarian fragments to the remaining left ovary and 11 fragments at other sites.
The patient started menstruating regularly five months later but then hopes were dashed by another problem.
Her partner turned out to be infertile, the couple tried unsuccessfully for an in-vitro pregnancy, and then their relationship failed.
AFP
