WOMEN made sterile by life-saving cancer treatment could be made fertile again according to ground-breaking research carried out by medical experts in the region.

Experts from the Christie Hospital, the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research and St Mary's Hospital in Manchester and the University of Leeds have undertaken the world's first non-test tube investigation on the safety of grafting ovarian tissue from cancer patients.

Freezing, thawing and grafting back ovarian tissue into women who have undergone cancer treatment is a potential fertility lifeline for hundreds of women throughout the country. Researchers have successfully grown ovarian tissue from 18 women with cancers of the lymph glands. This tissue was normal and contained no cancer cells. The study shows that fears about reintroducing cancer may be overstated, and that preserving ovarian tissue to transplant back at a later stage might be the best option for young cancer patients anxious to preserve their fertility.

John Radford, Professor of Medical Oncology at the Christie Hospital, was part of the research team. "Women often become infertile after chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer, and for some time we and others have been looking at ways to make it possible for women to regain their fertility after treatment.

Option

"For those who have no partner, young girls, or women who require immediate treatment, embryo freezing is not feasible. The other option of preserving ovarian tissue and then grafting it back has raised concerns that cancer cells lurking within the tissue could be reintroduced into the body. This study makes us more optimistic about the safety of transplanting ovarian tissue back into women after treatment for lymphoma." The patients were deliberately selected for having high-risk disease. The study was based on a worst-case scenario of highly aggressive cancers that were likely to have already spread at the time the ovarian tissue was removed. The study focused on lymphoma, an appropriate model for other cancers.

Professor Radford is cautiously optimistic. He stresses the results are part of extensive research, still ongoing. He said: "The follow-up period for this study was fairly short, so efforts to develop new techniques to detect residual disease should continue.

"These findings do not confirm that it is completely safe to retransplant ovarian tissue. Nevertheless, this is a significant step forward in our efforts to improve the lives of cancer patients."