Aggressive chemotherapy/radiotherapy and bone marrow transplantation can cure >90% of girls and young women affected by disorders requiring such treatment. However, the ovaries are very sensitive to cytotoxic drugs, especially to alkylating agents. Several options are currently available to preserve fertility in cancer patients. The present review reports the results of 60 orthotopic reimplanta...

A series of monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs discordant for premature ovarian failure presented an unusual opportunity to study fresh ovarian transplantation. This unusual series then helped us to refine the techniques for both fresh and frozen ovary transplantation in order to preserve fertility for cancer patients who would otherwise suffer iatrogenic iatrogenic ovarian failure from their chemothe...

In 2010, there were an estimated 730,000 new cancer cases in females, resulting in approximately 270,000 deaths [ 1 ] . Although malignancy remains a critical health concern, signi fi cant medical advances in cancer detection and treatment have improved survival rates for patients. Gonadotoxic chemotherapy or radiation for malignant disease may result in altered ovarian function, affecting both...

As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, like other nascent medical technologies ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) raises no earth-shatteringly new moral questions. Rather, it poses old moral questions in new ways, thus shedding light not only on our old answers but also on our old methods of reaching them. My task here is to point out the ways in which OTC forces us to embrace important...

With the increasing numbers of survivors of cancer in young people, future fertility and ovarian function are important considerations that should be discussed before treatment commences. Some young people, by nature of the treatment they will receive, are at high risk of premature ovarian insufficiency and infertility. For them, ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) is one approach to fertilit...