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Entnommes ovarian tissue in childhood
At 13, a girl has to undergo chemotherapy. As a precaution, an ovary is taken from her and used again years later.
This story is a story of how she writes life - a (sad) story with a happy ending. At the age of 13, a Belgian girl suffers from sickle cell anemia and has to withdraw from chemotherapy. The likelihood that she will eventually have children of her own - low. Then the miracle. Last November, 14 years later, the young woman gives birth to a healthy boy. What happened?
The small patient is suffering from hereditary red cell disease, sickle cell anemia. She has to undergo chemotherapy. What few people know: Chemotherapy often causes infertility. The doctors in Belgium react to the fate of the little girl and remove her right ovary and freeze it before her first period. 12 years later, at the age of 25, the now healthy woman turns to the Erasmus Hospital of the Free University of Brussels - with a baby wish. Her hormone therapy is stopped, the ovaries are reinstated. Five months later, the young woman gets her period for the first time, two years later, she gives birth to a healthy boy.
"This is an important breakthrough in this area because children are the patients who will benefit the most from the procedure in the future, " reproductive physician Isabelle Demeestere told the medical journal Human Reproduction. The process of reintroducing women's ovarian tissue as a precautionary measure after chemotherapy has been established is not new. Unusually, however, is the early removal of the tissue. And so far unique.
