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Women after chemotherapy will be more likely to become pregnant
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Researchers from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, found that there is a way that can promote the maturation of small eggs, turning them into healthy ones, which increases the chances of women who survived chemotherapy or radiation to successfully perform in vitro fertilization.
IVF procedure (in vitro fertilization) - used in world practice since 1978. This is the leading auxiliary reproductive technology.
Very often women who have won cancer and who have been through radiation or chemotherapy can not have children, because their eggs die as a result of irradiation.
Despite the fact that science has found ways to save eggs and even embryos by freezing, this is only relevant for those girls who have reached puberty. But often tumor processes diagnose in very young girls, which reduces their chances of getting pregnant to zero.
Young women can face such diseases as lymphoma, leukemia, neuroblastoma and sarcoma. After the cancer is removed, physicians prescribe a course of radiation or chemotherapy to patients. This is a necessary measure to prevent the development of metastases in the body and the preservation of life, but these procedures lead to sterilization of the female body.
The most reliable way to keep the possibility of having children is to freeze pieces of ovarian tissue containing embryos of future eggs before passing the course of chemotherapy. The so-called primordial follicles - the woman's own genetic material, can be used in a few years.
Until now, scientists have not been able to find a way to ripen immature eggs outside the body, but they found that a chemical that suppresses the PTEN molecule can stimulate the maturation of small eggs.
"This discovery shows that the use of PTEN inhibitors is very effective in activating small ovaries in vitro," said Liu Kui, professor of the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Gothenburg. "In this way, we can help those women whose ovaries are not ripe enough for the IVF procedure."