Hope for infertile women: Eggs can grow on forearm

When the doctor told the young woman, wife of an Army officer, that treating for cancer could destroy her chances of becoming pregnant, she refused to make a choice.

Referred to the Army Hospital Research and Referral — it does free IVF treatment for wives of armed forces personnel — the woman was told by Lt Col Pankaj Talwar, IVF specialist at the ART clinic in the hospital, that her chances of pregnancy were slim because such treatment had resulted in only six to seven successful pregnancies in the world.

But the woman was ready to take the chance.

Now, doctors have preserved her ovarian tissue and in January, when she is done with the treatment for cancer, they will graft it on the forearm and hope the new kind of transplant results in a pregnancy.

The eggs will grow in her forearm, and may lead to a successful pregnancy, giving hope to other women who become infertile post-cancer treatment as the ovaries get affected — it takes a few years to heal and by then, many of approach menopause.

Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and radical surgery, cause premature menopause and could result in infertility in women suffering from cancer, doctors said.

“In case there is no time, we take out one ovary, cut it into 40-odd pieces and freeze the tissue at minus 196 degrees Celsius. When the woman becomes cancer-free, we transplant the ovarian tissue,” Talwar said.

“The woman was referred to us. We counsel the patient, then decide what is to be done. Our programme is barely 18 months old. This is a medical application and she is our first patient. In January-February, we will do the transplant. We are in this world to procreate. We have no right to take away their hope. This, however, is not a guaranteed way of getting a baby. We told her it is still in the experimental stage. The woman also knows this. She has no chance after she gets radiotherapy.”

Once the woman, 26, is done with chemotherapy, doctors will transplant the tissue and wait for 2 to 3 months for her to conceive.

“She is from a village, not from a metropolitan area and we know the pressures,” Talwar said.

IVF treatment for cancer patients is new in India. According to Lt Gen Naresh Kumar, Commandant, Army Hospital Research and Referral, such a transplant is being done for the first time in the country.

It was only in the last decade that cancer patients could have their sperm or eggs collected and cryopreserved for post-recovery transplant due to of the advances in reproductive technology. For women, the procedure requires the prior administration of fertility hormones, followed by a surgical procedure for egg retrieval, an operation that is performed under anaesthesia.

In In Vitro Maturation, a woman can have her eggs harvested without undergoing prior hormonal stimulation so the delay in cancer therapy is mitigated. But it is not a guaranteed procedure.

ps- this article was published in ' The Indian Express" newspaper today, not sure if this will work & but sincerely hope so, as it will help all those women who want to have their own babies after cancer. Let us hope & wish for the best. After all, we all live on hopes, don't we ?