Endocrine Abstracts

Increased survival rates especially among young cancer patients have resulted in more and more fertility centers worldwide have acknowledged that fertility preservation is becoming an important quality of life issue to the growing population of cancer survivors treated during their fertile years. If the ovaries become depleted of follicles the woman will become sterile, loose menstrual cycles and many women experience profound effects on the physical and psychological status. ...

IVF and ICSI are fully established methods of assisted reproduction which can be used for patients awaiting cytotoxic therapy:Following the data of the German, Swiss and Austrian network Fertiprotekt (www.fertiprotekt.eu), 164 of 1388 counselled patients have chosen ovarian stimulation and cryopreservation of oocytes as a fertility preservation technique in 2007–2009. Among those patients 2417 oocytes were co...

IVF treatment would gain considerable advantage from a safe and efficient oocyte cryopreservation method. Embryo freezing, which involves important legal and ethical drawbacks, would be no longer needed. Women facing a destiny of premature ovarian failure or requiring oocyte donation would also benefit from oocyte cryopreservation. Studies conducted in the last few years suggest that oocyte cryopreservation can be applied in a systematic and reproducible fashion, in some cases...