Breast cancer and fertility: for the first child in the world born with oocytes matured in the laboratory

It IS CALLED Jules, and is the first child in the world born from a former patient with breast cancer, thanks to oocytes matured in the laboratory : a new technique in assisted reproduction - the IVM, in vitro maturation, in fact, different from those used so far in order to preserve the fertility of young patients with cancer.
The story of The birth (which occurred actually in July) has now been made public in a letter to the Annals of Oncology by a group of doctors at the Antoine Béclère University Hospital, Clamart, near Paris. The woman had received the diagnosis of breast cancer when he was just 29 years: the tumor (a carcinoma, stage III) was a “hormone-sensitive”, positive to receptors for both estrogen either progesterone, and had reached the axillary lymph nodes. The surgery was followed by chemotherapy, in which side effects it has to cause damage to the ovarian reserve , and compromising the possibility of having children. In some cases, the infertility is, in fact, permanent.
The two main techniques to preserve fertility in Addition to chemotherapy, women with breast cancer, “hormone-sensitive” are treated, for at least 5 years, with drugs that induce menopause, for lower risk that the cancer returns. For this young women has (or should) be proposed as the preservation of fertility. The most widely-used technique until today it is the one that provides the hormonal stimulation to mature as many oocytes as possible, which are then taken before the beginning of chemotherapy and “frozen” while waiting for the patient to finish the treatment. Some years, it is possible to resort to another technique: the sampling - and subsequent cryopreservation - ovarian tissue, which is not required in the hormonal stimulation.
The third option: the IVM For the mother of Jules, however, has been chosen as a third technique. As reported by the authors, in his case, the hormonal stimulation to induce oocyte maturation was not recommended, and the doctors had proposed that the ovarian tissue cryopreservation is the removal of immature oocytes , to make and to mature in vitro (IVM). Not wanting to undergo a laparoscopy for removal of ovarian tissue, the woman had decided to the IVM. Were then taken of the immature oocytes that were matured in the laboratory for 24 hours. At the end of the process, it was possible to get six mature oocytes, which were frozen.