Birth after ovarian tissue retransplant

I thought this was a pretty interesting newsbyte.

=======================
BRUSSELS, Belgium - A woman who gave birth after a pioneering ovarian tissue
transplant snuggled her day-old baby girl Friday and called her "a big
miracle."

Ouarda Touirat, who was infertile after she underwent chemotherapy due to
Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1997, gave birth Thursday night following the
ground-breaking procedure that doctors say could one day allow women to
delay motherhood beyond menopause.

"I am very happy, it's what I always wanted," said Touirat, who presented
her healthy 8-pound, 3-ounce baby, Tamara, at a news conference at Brussels'
Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc hospital.

"I was crying at first, it's a dream ... a big miracle," said the 32-year
old mother.

Dr. Jaques Donnez cut ovarian tissue from Touirat before she underwent
chemotherapy, then froze it in liquid nitrogen. Five years after she was
cleared of cancer, the tissue was grafted back onto her fallopian tubes,
allowing for a natural pregnancy.

"This is the first time that the tissue was cryo-preserved, removed before
chemotherapy and was successfully implanted," said Donnez, head of the
Department of Gynecology and Andrology at the hospital. "It is a big message
of hope for all women with cancer who have to go and have to have
chemotherapy."

News of the procedure was published in the British medical journal The
Lancet on Friday.

"When I proposed the ovarian graft to the patient, we had no idea it was
working or not, we just ... (had) experimental studies in animals," Donnez
said.

He said 146 women were undergoing the same procedure, "but Mrs. Touirat was
one of the first in 1997 who has undergone ... the cryopreservation."

"Several lines of evidence lend support to our assertion that the origin of
the pregnancy was the autotransplanted ... tissue," the researchers wrote in
the journal.

Experts in the field were cautious about the report, however, saying there
was a small chance the baby came from existing ovaries rather than the
transplanted tissue.

Donnez said doctors from Catholic University in Louvain, Belgium, made a
strong case that the birth resulted from the transplant.

"It cannot be proved with 100 percent certainty (that the pregnancy came
from the graft) because ovulation from the transplant was calculated from
temperature, but was not confirmed," said Dr. Kutluk Oktay, an expert who
was not involved with the operation but has conducted much of the key
research in the field.

Even though the woman's remaining ovarian tissue stopped working after the
cancer treatment, it recovered and she ovulated three years later, which
indicates it's possible that the native ovaries could have ovulated again to
produce the baby, Oktay said.

Oktay, a reproductive endocrinologist from Cornell University in Ithaca,
N.Y., said the result would have been definitive if the researchers had
tracked the transplanted tissue on a daily basis to verify that the follicle
they saw early in the process released an egg and that this was the egg that
was fertilized.

Alternatively, if the egg had been harvested from the transplanted tissue
and fertilized in a lab before being implanted in the womb, as in normal
fertility treatment, the technique would be proven, he said.

Donnez was optimistic the procedure would be made easier in the years ahead
thanks to advances, meaning more women could be given the choice of having a
baby.

He said the treatment was not very expensive, adding it was "much less
expensive than in-vitro fertilization."
Donnez said health authorities should make it "a medical legal obligation"
to offer women who have to undergo chemotherapy the option for fertility
preservation.

"This is the way to go," Donnez said. "Because of the progress ... made by
medicine, more and more women are survivors of cancer."
========================
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 5), and the Rising Son (Julian, 7)

This week's suggested Bush/Cheney campaign bumper sticker:
"Four More Wars!"

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

Oh! I saw that on the news while on dinner break at work. How cool! And
that baby was on beyond darling, wasn't she?!

Kelly
#4 2/05

"Circe" wrote in message
news:vIW4d.61133$9Y5.47311@fed1read02...
I thought this was a pretty interesting newsbyte.

=======================
BRUSSELS, Belgium - A woman who gave birth after a pioneering ovarian
tissue
transplant snuggled her day-old baby girl Friday and called her "a big
miracle."

Ouarda Touirat, who was infertile after she underwent chemotherapy due to
Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1997, gave birth Thursday night following the
ground-breaking procedure that doctors say could one day allow women to
delay motherhood beyond menopause.

"I am very happy, it's what I always wanted," said Touirat, who presented
her healthy 8-pound, 3-ounce baby, Tamara, at a news conference at
Brussels'
Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc hospital.

"I was crying at first, it's a dream ... a big miracle," said the 32-year
old mother.

Dr. Jaques Donnez cut ovarian tissue from Touirat before she underwent
chemotherapy, then froze it in liquid nitrogen. Five years after she was
cleared of cancer, the tissue was grafted back onto her fallopian tubes,
allowing for a natural pregnancy.

"This is the first time that the tissue was cryo-preserved, removed before
chemotherapy and was successfully implanted," said Donnez, head of the
Department of Gynecology and Andrology at the hospital. "It is a big
message
of hope for all women with cancer who have to go and have to have
chemotherapy."

News of the procedure was published in the British medical journal The
Lancet on Friday.

"When I proposed the ovarian graft to the patient, we had no idea it was
working or not, we just ... (had) experimental studies in animals," Donnez
said.

He said 146 women were undergoing the same procedure, "but Mrs. Touirat
was
one of the first in 1997 who has undergone ... the cryopreservation."

"Several lines of evidence lend support to our assertion that the origin
of
the pregnancy was the autotransplanted ... tissue," the researchers wrote
in
the journal.

Experts in the field were cautious about the report, however, saying there
was a small chance the baby came from existing ovaries rather than the
transplanted tissue.

Donnez said doctors from Catholic University in Louvain, Belgium, made a
strong case that the birth resulted from the transplant.

"It cannot be proved with 100 percent certainty (that the pregnancy came
from the graft) because ovulation from the transplant was calculated from
temperature, but was not confirmed," said Dr. Kutluk Oktay, an expert who
was not involved with the operation but has conducted much of the key
research in the field.

Even though the woman's remaining ovarian tissue stopped working after the
cancer treatment, it recovered and she ovulated three years later, which
indicates it's possible that the native ovaries could have ovulated again
to
produce the baby, Oktay said.

Oktay, a reproductive endocrinologist from Cornell University in Ithaca,
N.Y., said the result would have been definitive if the researchers had
tracked the transplanted tissue on a daily basis to verify that the
follicle
they saw early in the process released an egg and that this was the egg
that
was fertilized.

Alternatively, if the egg had been harvested from the transplanted tissue
and fertilized in a lab before being implanted in the womb, as in normal
fertility treatment, the technique would be proven, he said.

Donnez was optimistic the procedure would be made easier in the years
ahead
thanks to advances, meaning more women could be given the choice of having
a
baby.

He said the treatment was not very expensive, adding it was "much less
expensive than in-vitro fertilization."
Donnez said health authorities should make it "a medical legal obligation"
to offer women who have to undergo chemotherapy the option for fertility
preservation.

"This is the way to go," Donnez said. "Because of the progress ... made by
medicine, more and more women are survivors of cancer."
========================
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 5), and the Rising Son (Julian, 7)

This week's suggested Bush/Cheney campaign bumper sticker:
"Four More Wars!"

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman