An ovarian tissue transplant was performed for the first time in the country by the gynecology team at Tehran’s Rasoul Akram Hospital in cooperation with Rooyan Research and Clinical Center for Infertility and Reproductive Health in Iran.
The patient, a 23-year-old woman who was suffering from colon cancer four years ago at the age of 19, underwent different treatments including chemotherapy and radiotherapy on her cancer-affected ovary, said Abolfazl Mahdizadeh, head of the hospital women’s ward.
“At the time her doctor suggested that she freeze her healthy ovary before starting the treatment and she agreed.” After she was cured, the frozen ovary was transplanted back into the patient as she wanted to get pregnant, he added.
Mahdizadeh told IRNA that “Ovarian tissue transplants for women who want to have a baby after cancer treatment appear to be safe and are successful.”
“Thanks to progress in cancer treatment, many young women survive cancer and go on to lead long and normal lives. But many cancer treatments can damage the ovaries and women cannot get pregnant.”
According to figures released by the Cancer Research Center at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, annually more than 26,000 women are diagnosed with different types of cancers in the country and therefore undergo treatment.
“To give women a chance of getting pregnant in later years, some doctors now offer to remove all or part of an ovary so it can be frozen and stored before treatment starts. Later, it can be transplanted back,” he said.
Delayed Marriage
At present, the rate of late marriages has increased significantly in Iran due to various factors. Currently, there are 11 million people in the country who are single.
The technology not only is an option for cancer survivors; it is also an option for a woman who wants her own genetic child, but is not able to get married at a young age.
By age 40, the possibility that a woman can get pregnant decreases significantly because it is very likely that her biological clock has stopped working and she is no longer fertile. Therefore, women who find themselves not yet married by age 35, but who still want to have children in the future, can save their fertility by using this method which albeit is nascent in the country.
Ovarian tissue freezing is a new solution for women who get married late or want to start a family at an age when they have lost their fertility due to the natural aging process.
At present, between 11% and 15% of the 80 million population of the country suffers from infertility and studies have shown that many of the cases are above the golden age to start a family.
The average marriage age is 25 and 27 for women and men in the country currently; however the figure is not the same in all the provinces. For example, it is 29 and 32 for women and men living in the upscale districts of Tehran and other cosmopolitan cities.
