Fertility hope for cancer sufferers in ovaries breakthrough

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2007

TOKYO (AFP) — Japanese researchers said Thursday they have successfully removed, frozen and put back the ovaries of monkeys in a process raising hopes women treated for cancer can still have a natural pregnancy.

Adapting a freezing method which the Japanese use to preserve tuna, the researchers took out both ovaries from five monkeys and froze them for up to three weeks before re-inserting them.

Tadashi Sankai, chief researcher at the National Institute of Biomedical Innovation's primate laboratory, said they were now also studying freezing other organs such as the heart and liver, as well as the skin.

The researchers confirmed the returned ovaries in two of the monkeys were producing estrogen, the hormone needed to grow eggs in the female body.

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