Recent Scientific Publications & News

- Composed for IVF-Worldwide.com Blog by Dr. Sherman Silber, St Lukes Hospital, St Louis, Missouri

For fertility preservation, the ASRM has finally ruled that oocyte freezing for cancer patients, or even for social reasons is no longer to be considered experimental.

 We requested this in an editorial in Fertility and Sterility 3 years go (Homburg, Vanderveen, and Silber). Finally it is approved.

However, about ovarian tissue cryopreservation being deemed as experimental still, and egg and embryo freezing not being experimental, I think it is clear that neither should ovarian tissue freezing be considered experimental any longer. Our many papers and presentations, as well as the worldwide experience in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, in Copenhagen, in Brussels, in Valencia, in Paris, and in St Louis, all attest to the fact that if anything, ovary freezing for cancer patients should be considered less experimental in fact than oocyte freezing, though neither should be considered experimental any longer:

1) We have over 20 babies already from frozen ovarian tissue transplantation in cancer patients, and there is not one yet reported from egg freezing for cancer patients. Of course there will be, and of course egg freezing should not be considered experimental either as it has been verified in donor egg bank cycles to be a reliable procedure. However if you are looking at fertility preservation for cancer patients, ovary freezing is much more tried and proven than egg freezing. Virtually every single case results in menstrual cycling and ovulation. In fact, a first prize award went to that paper of ovarian freezing and transplantation at ASRM this very same year that oocyte freezing was declared by ASRM as not experimental. So why should ovary freezing still be considered experimental, in view of its widespread success in Valencia, Copenhagen, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, France, Belgium, and in St Louis?

2) Furthermore ovarian freezing has several advantages over oocyte freezing for cancer patients. For most cancer patients, the oncologists do not want to wait for one to six months while women are undergoing ovarian hormonal stimulation to retrieve and freeze eggs. So usually it is a "no-go" decision for egg freezing. But ovary freezing is one quick outpatient procedure which might delay the cancer treatment by two or three days at most, not one to six months.

3) There are so many more healthy babies around the world now from this approach, and none to only an occasional one for cancer patients that had egg freezing, and all of the frozen ovary cases resume menstrual cycling and ovulation. No exceptions yet to this very robust success with ovary freezing and transplantation.

4) So surely ovary freezing should not be considered experimental any more than egg freezing should be. We have published on this extensively, and I have presented this to the ASRM meeting in San Diego last week, and it is just clear that ovary freezing is very robust and no longer experimental any more than egg freezing should be considered experimental for preserving fertility for cancer patients