Second ovary transplant success

Ouarda Touriat gave birth last year after an ovarian tissue transplant

A second woman has had a successful ovarian tissue transplant, Belgian doctors have announced.

The University of Louvain in Brussels team said the woman's menstrual cycle, which had stopped after radiotherapy treatment, had been restored.

Last year, a woman gave birth to a daughter after her ovary transplant.

Experts at a Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority meeting said the news dispelled doubts over the technique's potential.

This is just the beginning of the story Professor Jacques Donnez, University of Louvain

When 32-year-old cancer patient Ourda Touirat had her daughter last September after undergoing a transplant, some experts suggested her menstrual cycle may have restarted naturally.

In this latest case, a 28-year-old woman had some of her ovary tissue removed before receiving radiotherapy treatment for sickle-cell anaemia.

If radiotherapy affects the ovaries, it immediately makes a woman infertile.

The ovarian transplant procedure begins by taking tiny strips of ovarian tissue, one to two millimetres thick, from the most productive part of the ovary.

These are then cut into sections and frozen in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of almost minus 200ºC .

Pregnancy hope

The sickle-cell anaemia patient's ovarian tissue was removed in 1999 before her radiotherapy treatment.

In August last year, some of the tissue was reimplanted next to one of her ovaries. She began menstruating again in January this year.

Professor Jacques Donnez, who has been leading the work, told the HFEA conference: "We are hoping that she will become pregnant like the last patient, but we do not know how long that may take."

He said the patient was delighted with the success of the procedure.

"She didn't menstruate for two years and the first time she started bleeding again she knew she was still a woman and was very pleased.

"This is just the beginning of the story, but it does prove that for a second woman we have been able to restore ovarian function."

Professor Alan Trounson, professor of stem cell sciences at Monash University in Australia, who was attending the HFEA conference, described the advance as "fantastic".

"It gives strong credibility to what he (Prof Donnez) has been doing."

Details of the case were first revealed last week at the 12th World Congress on Human Reproduction in Venice.