Unknown risk of the reintroduction of malignant cells in a Danish cohort of women autotransplanted with ovarian tissue.

To the Editor:

Ovarian cryopreservation appears to hold much promise for fertility preservation of women undergoing gonadotoxic therapy. In the Netherlands, cryopreservation of ovarian tissue has been performed for a number of cancer patients. No autotransplantation of ovarian tissue has been performed thus far, due (amongst other reasons) to concerns about the risk of reintroducing the malignancy with the transplant.

The available literature on this subject is not unequivocal. For example, Shaw et al. (1) have shown in a mouse model that lymphoma can be transmitted to the recipient by both fresh and frozen ovarian tissue grafts. Kim et al. (2), on the other hand, reassuringly demonstrated that none of the mice that were xenografted with human ovarian tissue fragments derived from patients with (non)Hodgkin lymphoma developed disease.

Xenografting fresh and cryopreserved human ovarian tissue (revised 10-31-08)

 

To the Editor:

In a recent article by Schubert et al. (1), human ovarian cortical samples obtained from benign ovarian cysts were xenografted into SCID mice subcutaneously as either fresh or frozen-thawed pieces . Follicle counts in the grafts and their E₂ production as a measure of endocrine function were assessed. While recognizing their valuable work and previous contributions to the field, there are certain points in their study that need to be clarified to the readers.