Transplantation of Frozen Thawed Ovarian Tissue State of the Art

Worldwide, an increasing number of cancer patients have some of their ovarian tissue cryopreserved for fertility preservation purposes prior to treatment of a malignant disease. The purpose of this review is to summarize the results from ovarian tissue transplantation and the different techniques that can be applied when autotransplanting the tissue. To date, a total of 18 babies have been born as a result of cryopreserved/thawed autotransplanted ovarian cortical tissue and an even larger number of premenopausal women have regained their ovarian function and menstrual cyclicity as a result of autotransplantation. Orthotopic or heterotopic sites can be chosen for the cortical grafts, but so far all babies born have been from orthotopical graft sites. Followup studies after transplantation have shown encouraging results regarding the longevity of the grafts with up to 8 years of graft viability. Reassuringly, no cases of introduction of the original disease have so far been reported in cancer survivors grafted with frozen/thawed ovarian tissue.