This medical milestone brings new hope to women facing fertility challenges from cancer treatment. A 34-year-old French woman, left unable to conceive after breast cancer therapy, welcomed a healthy baby boy thanks to a pioneering technique: harvesting and freezing her immature eggs.
“This success represents an important step forward in fertility preservation,” said Michaël Grynberg, MD, director of reproductive medicine at Antoine Béclère Hospital in Clamart, France, where this world-first procedure for cancer patients occurred.
A collection of 7 immature oocytes
For women under 40 facing fertility-threatening treatments like chemotherapy, freezing mature eggs after hormonal stimulation is standard. However, for this patient with hormone-sensitive breast cancer, stimulation was not an option.
Grynberg's team instead collected seven immature oocytes, matured them in the lab for 48 hours, then vitrified them—an ultra-rapid freezing method for optimal preservation—as detailed in a February 19 article in the journal Annals of Oncology. She then underwent chemotherapy for her breast cancer.
“So far, there has been no successful pregnancy…”
Five years later, cancer-free but infertile from treatment, her eggs were thawed and used for IVF. One of five viable embryos implanted successfully, leading to the birth of healthy baby Jules in July 2019. “To date, there have been no successful pregnancies in patients treated for cancer from eggs that have been subjected to both in vitro maturation (IVM) and vitrification”, noted Annals of Oncology in a press release.
“We show that this technique, even if it is probably a little less effective today than freezing mature eggs,” can still make it possible to have children,” Grynberg told AFP. Two additional pregnancies are underway at the hospital using the same method.
In breast cancer, treatments render about 40% of women aged 40 infertile and 15-20% of those aged 30, highlights the gynecologist-obstetrician, stressing the critical need for fertility preservation in young cancer patients.
