At this week's American Society of Reproductive Medicine meeting this week, scientists were announcing the ability to take out a woman's ovary, freeze it in its entirety, and transplant the ovary later -- either into
the same or another woman.
The treatment would allow cancer patients or those undergoing other treatments that would compromise the health of the eggs to protect the entire ovary. Upon transplantation back into the woman's body, the ovary and the eggs take up where they left off.
"We can transplant ovaries without any loss of ovarian tissue or eggs, and it functions perfectly normally whether it's fresh or frozen," said co-researcher Dr. Sherman Silber, director of the Infertility Center of St. Louis at St. Luke's Hospital.
Here is the Washington Post story about the announcement and the treatment:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/10/AR2008111002265.html
Another angle to the surgery is that it would allow women who want to postpone childbearing to take out an ovary, freeze it, and then re-implant it when she is ready to have children. The eggs would not have aged in the meantime.
Would you consider such a procedure? Would it be worth the cost and surgery to know that 10 years from now, when you are ready to have children, that your eggs would be younger and more viable?