Ovarian Tissue Cryopreservation: Preserving Future Fertility Options

Egg freezing and fertility protection today

The source of a woman’s fertility are/is her ovaries/ovary.  The cause of the menopause is the declining function of the ovary. The ovary contains the eggs and produces the hormones necessary for a successful conception.

As a woman ages the quality and number of eggs decline and eventually the supply ends, resulting in cessation of hormone production and thereby introducing the menopause.

ProFaM offers the opportunity to preserve some of your ovarian tissue for your future use.

Uncover cutting-edge reproductive technology

Young women today are destined to live in the menopausal stage for 30-40 years (or more), but throughout history most women did not live much beyond their fertile period. Although modern lifestyle and medicine are ensuring we live much longer, the intrinsic nature of the ovaries has not changed, and unless we use modern technology to preserve them, the ovaries will cease to function at around 45-50 years of age, leaving a woman with 4 or 5 decades of menopausal issues. Delaying menopause with ovarian tissue cryopreservation and transplantation later in life can extend the period a woman lives in her pre-menopausal stage. Years of meticulous research has now allowed women to delay their biological clock.

Ovarian tissue cryopreservation, storage and transplantation has been undertaken for over 20 years in patients who are at risk of losing their fertility due to cancer or benign disease. There have been many medical-science publications on this technology for fertility preservation in these patients. The technology is the same for both fertility preservation and using this approach for extending the menopause. Given the success with fertility preservation we believe we are now in a position to offer the opportunity to postpone the menopause.

Would removal of ovarian tissue affect my future fertility and onset of menopause?

The removal of a precise amount of tissue should have little or no bearing on your future fertility or when you will naturally begin the menopause. However, it is possible that menopause could commence a little earlier, but this is likely to be greatly outweighed by delaying the menopause for a decade or longer with the transplantation of stored ovarian tissue.

When you wish to have the tissue reimplanted, the timing will be your choice with the guidance of your consultant. And the location you transfer the tissue depends upon individual circumstances, and as there are a number of options. Your particular situation needs to be discussed with your consultant.

How to access Ovarian Tissue Preservation services through ProFam?

Women are born with around 2 million eggs in their ovaries, which reduce in number to about 400,000 when they reach puberty. When a woman ovulates (releases an egg), usually one per month, many eggs develop along with the one that is ovulated but they deteriorate before ovulation (about 10,000 die every month).

Eventually, when a woman approaches her menopause, there are very few eggs left in the ovary, and this brings about the menopausal state. So during a woman’s fertile period all the eggs ovulated will have been in the ovary since before birth.

It is well established that as a woman ages not only do the number of the eggs decline but also their quality; and by ‘quality’ we usually mean the stability of their chromosomes. This is the reason why the chance of Down Syndrome increases with age, for example the chance of an egg carrying the extra chromosome for Down Syndrome at age 32 is 1/725, but at 40 this increases to 1/100. This is also the main reason miscarriage increases with age, from about 12% at 34 to 42% at age 40.

The younger the tissue is frozen the better in terms of egg quality and the longer the menopause can be delayed. Age 25-30 is optimal, but it can be done at any time with expected good results up to 37.

The older you are, especially past 35 but starting at 32, the quality of your eggs declines, with increasing risk of chromosomal abnormality in many of the eggs and that increases the risk of a chromosomal anomaly resulting in the baby; see table on this page.