The valencia programme for fertility preservation

Abstract

Ovarian tissue cryopreservation is a feasible option to preserve ovarian function and possibly fertility in adolescents and young women at risk of developing premature ovarian failure (POF) due to chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy.

Efficacy of ovarian tissue cryopreservation in a major European center

“…Although various large centers for cryopreservation of ovarian tissue exist, [12,13,15,17,18,21,24] to the best of our knowledge, cohort studies in which the impact of currently used cryopreservation/ thawing protocols on both follicle and stromal cell survival in young cancer patients is measured have not been published before. Earlier studies considering the impact of slow freezing techniques other than evaluated here, generally focused on follicle viability only [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] and often described patient populations without an indication for fertility preservation (e.g.…”

“…Although these findings cannot be extrapolated to other protocols, various other clinics have comparable freezing protocols to the DMSO-based protocol that was evaluated in the current paper. [60,6,13,61] Nevertheless, ethylene glycol is also used as a cryoprotectant in a major center reporting live births. [26] With respect to thawing, a variety of protocols has been reported.…”

“…Although the efficacy of cryopreservation of ovarian tissue may thus differ from one center to another, information regarding these differences is scarce. [10,11] This is remarkable given the fact that the use of cryopreservation of ovarian tissue has increased considerably in the past decade [5,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] with tissue from at least 2,500 patients now being stored at a limited number of highly experienced centers [23].…”

Spontaneous in vitro maturation of oocytes prior to ovarian tissue cryopreservation in natural cycles of oncologic patients

“…Inevitably, some follicles of <6 mm were broken during scraping and their content released into the detritus. After processing, the thinned ovarian piece was divided in two and placed in clearly identifiable tubes and transported in DMEM at 4°C to the Centro de Transfusión de la Comunidad Valenciana for freezing and cryobanking [23].…”

“…Our aim was to explore the recovery rate of immature oocytes in association with our OTC protocol [22,23] and in the absence of any additional treatment or intervention (e.g. transvaginal punction or hCG-priming).…”