Cryopreservation of Ovarian Tissue in Breast Cancer Patients: 10 Years of Experience

Abstract

Aim: To present a decade of experience with ovarian tissue cryopreservation in breast cancer patients. Materials & methods: The safety of the procedure was histologically evaluated before and after freezing in 94 patients. Out of 94 patients, 48 prechemotherapy patients were randomly selected to determine stroma and follicle preservation and follicular density. Results: The ovarian tissue from 94 patients did not identify any micrometastases. After cryopreservation, morphology of the ovarian tissue and density of healthy follicles were similar in fresh and frozen tissue. Follicular density decreased with the increasing age of patients in both fresh and frozen tissue (p < 0.0001). A variation in follicular density was observed between fresh and frozen tissue (p < 0.05). Conclusion: These results suggest that ovarian tissue cryopreservation is highly feasible for preserving the fertility of young breast cancer patients.

Keywords:

• breast cancer
• fertility preservation
• follicular density
• histological analysis
• ovarian tissue cryopreservation

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors would like to thank ‘Susan G Komen Italy’, a non-profit volunteer-based association which has been operating since 2000 in the fight against breast cancer, for the grant for their research. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank D Terribile for her help in breast cancer classification.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank ‘Susan G Komen Italy’, a non-profit volunteer-based association which has been operating since 2000 in the fight against breast cancer, for the grant for their research. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.