First baby born from egg matured in lab and frozen

First baby born from egg matured in lab and frozen
By BEN HIRSCHLER
July 2, 2007—


LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - The first test-tube baby created from an egg matured in the laboratory and then frozen has been born in Canada, in a breakthrough offering hope to women with cancer and others unsuited to normal IVF treatment.

The baby is doing well and another three women are pregnant by the same method, researchers told a medical meeting in Lyon, France, on Monday.

Conventional in vitro fertilisation (IVF) involves using high doses of expensive hormone drugs to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple mature eggs.

But some women seeking to preserve their child-bearing capacity may not have enough time to undergo ovarian stimulation or may have a condition that makes it dangerous, such as hormone-sensitive breast cancer.

For these patients, ripening eggs in the lab -- so-called in vitro maturation (IVM) -- makes sense. Until now, however, scientists have never frozen, thawed and then fertilised a lab-matured egg. This multi-step process increases significantly the flexibility of fertility treatment.

"We have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to do this and, so far, we have achieved four successful pregnancies, one of which has resulted in a live birth," Hananel Holzer of the McGill Reproductive Center in Montreal said in a statement.

The research is still at an early stage and has not yet been proven in cancer patients, he told the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).

But Holzer and other experts believe it has the potential to become one of the main options for fertility preservation.

Women diagnosed with cancer are likely to be the main beneficiaries, since cancer treatment can make them sterile and they often have no time to take fertility drugs.

At present, there is the experimental option of having ovarian tissue removed, frozen and transplanted back later. But this brings with it a theoretical risk of re-introducing cancer.

Holzer tried his new technique on 20 infertile women with polycystic ovary syndrome, a leading cause of infertility.

Joep Geraedts, ESHRE's chairman elect, said the resulting four pregnancies, or 20 percent success rate, was "quite good".

"If this works in cancer patients, it might ultimately be possible to do this in all women that undergo IVF or assisted reproduction because then you don't need to bother them with hormones," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

It could also save money, since treatment with hormone drugs can cost thousands of dollars. Leading makers of fertility drugs include Merck Serono and Akzo Nobel's Organon unit, which is being acquired by Schering-Plough. Geraedts said there should now be large-scale clinical trials to assess the new procedure definitively.


Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures


Labs Mature Eggs From Girls With Cancer
Doctors Bring Young Cancer Patients' Eggs to Maturity, Giving Hope for Future Childbirth
By MARIA CHENG
The Associated Press
LYON, France


Doctors have removed eggs from young female cancer patients and for the first time brought the eggs to maturity before freezing them, giving the girls a better chance to one day have children.

Previously, scientists had thought viable eggs could only be obtained from girls who had undergone puberty.

"We didn't expect young girls to have eggs that could withstand the process of maturation," which involves adding hormones, said Dr. Ariel Revel, who led the research at the Hadassah Hospital in Israel.

The research will be presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Lyon.

In related work, Canadian doctors on Monday announced the first birth of a baby from eggs matured in a laboratory, frozen, thawed and then fertilized a key development that holds promise for infertile women.

The year-old baby girl was born to a woman in Canada, doctors told the conference. Three other women are pregnant from eggs that had been matured in a lab, frozen, thawed and then implanted, they said.

The 20 women involved in the study are infertile with an average age of about 30. None have a history of cancer. Until now, doctors did not know whether eggs matured in a lab could withstand the fertilization process, adding that the research is still in early stages.

"It has the potential to become one of the main options for fertility preservation," said Dr. Hananel Holzer, the study's lead author and an assistant professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at McGill University in Montreal.

In the study involving young girls with cancer, Revel surgically extracted the eggs and then artificially matured them in a laboratory, with the idea of re-implanting them one day should the patient wish to have children.

To obtain the eggs, Revel and his colleagues performed surgery on 18 patients ages 5 to 20. Of 167 eggs, 41 were successfully matured, including some from prepubescent donors. They were then indistinguishable from those of older women, Revel said.

"Any advance that enables young women to have children one day after having cancer is positive," said Simon Davies, head of Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity based in Britain. Davies was not linked to the research.

But as the extraction of eggs is an invasive operation, Davies said more information was needed about potential risks to young women fighting cancer. There might also be ethical concerns, as the decision to remove eggs from very young girls would likely be made by the parents, not the patient.

Experts think cancer treatments can affect female fertility. Chemotherapy usually affects all body cells, attacking not only the cancer, but other areas including the ovaries for which it is often deadly.

Unlike men, who produce sperm throughout their lifetime, women only have a set number of eggs from their birth, which decreases as they age. Young girls who undergo aggressive chemotherapy treatments often experience a sharp drop in the number of their eggs, and some become completely infertile.

The cure rate for childhood cancer can be as high as 90 percent, and doctors are investigating options for preserving patients' fertility. Another experimental method involves removing a thin layer of ovarian tissue for re-implantation later, but trials so far have resulted in only a handful of pregnancies worldwide.

Immature eggs from adult women have previously been matured in the laboratory, but until now, no one had ever tried it with eggs from young girls.

The real test will come when the girls on whom the treatment was performed might be ready to have children. "We will only know the final chapter of this story in about 10 years, when we hope to close the circle of this research," Revel said.

None of the eggs has yet been thawed, and experts are unsure if the process of artificial insemination could result in other problems such as chromosomal abnormalities. Additional surveillance, such as amniocentesis screenings to check the baby's development, probably would be necessary.



Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures