Iwaho Kikuchi, Noriko Kagawa, Sherman Silber, Yasushi Isobe, Masashige Kuwayama, Jun Kumakiri and Satoru Takeda
For women with hematologic malignancy anticipating chemotherapy or radio therapy but wishing to preserve fertility, it is preferable that recovery from oophorectomy be as rapid as possible. Considering Reduced-Port Surgery (RPS) to be potentially suitable for such patients, we used RPS for a patient with malignant lymphoma scheduled for pre-bone marrow transplantation chemotherapy. The patient was a 28-year-old woman, gravida 0, who had requested fertility preservation. Thus, with ethics committee approval, the left ovary was removed by RPS, and ovarian cortex with primordial ovarian follicles was cryopreserved by vitrification. The cortex was divided into 12 pieces, 1 cm×1 cm×1 mm each, placed in a container, and stored in liquid nitrogen. The patient’s post-bone marrow transplantation course was good. Because she was judged to have lost ovarian function, ovarian back-transplantation was performed by RPS. The cortex of the remaining right ovary was removed with a laparoscopic cold knife and scissors while heparin saline was instilled to maintain blood flow and a 2 cm×1 cm base was created. Two thawed ovarian cortex pieces were laparoscopically sewed to the base with 5-0 absorbable sutures. By postoperative day 173, the ovarian follicle had increased to 10 mm in diameter, and the patient’s estradiol level had risen to 101 pg/ml, suggesting recovery of ovarian function. Our experience in this lymphoma case suggests that ovarian cryopreservation and back-transplantation for fertility preservation can be performed safely by RPS and is a viable option for selected patients anticipating chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation for hematologic malignancy.
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Journal of Blood & Lymph received 443 citations as per Google Scholar report
