It is freezing of a part or all of an ovary to save for future fertility treatment.Being the best surrogacy centre in Delhi NCR, what we do is instead of performing ovarian stimulation and then freezing the eggs (oocytes) we freeze the ovarian tissue directly. This ovarian tissue is harvested by way of Laparoscopic surgery and then later on processed into very tiny slices of ovarian strips which are then later on frozen in liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees.
Yes, it is completely safe and valid. The only procedure you will ever need in ovarian tissue freezing is laparoscopy which is a small surgical procedure under anesthesia. After the cancer treatment when the patient is stable and wants a child, we can then thaw the ovarian tissue and implant it back in the pelvis or any other site of the body (orthotopic or heterotopic implantation).
Ovarian tissue cryopreservation is mainly done for cancer patients awaiting chemotherapy or surgery. Even in cancer patients wanting to preserve future fertility, oocyte freezing (egg banking) is a suitable and reliable option. But many times (particularly in certain cancers) we do not have the time to wait for ovarian stimulation and ovum pick up. This is particularly relevant to hormone responsive cancers (eg. Endometrial cancer, breast cancer, etc.) where we want to avoid ovarian stimulation. In these cases, ovarian tissue cryopreservation is a blessing because not only we are avoiding ovarian stimulation but also preserving your future fertility by immediate ovarian tissue harvesting.
All cancer treatment modalities are toxic to fertility. Whether it is surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy all these treatments would render the reproductive organ cells dysfunctional. It is therefore highly imperative to think about future fertility and preserve it as soon as possible. It is also the duty of the treating cancer specialists to advise their patients about the same, but unfortunately the awareness of such possibilities or feasibility is still scant in those circles.
While we cannot compare ovarian tissue cryopreservation with freezing of mature eggs, ovarian tissue cryopreservation techniques have improved leaps and bounds lately. Although still challenging in novice hands, in the hands of an experienced professional embryologist ovarian tissue cryopreservation can be a big ray of hope for these patients. At the best IVF centre in Delhi, our lab directory and chief embryologist Dr. Akanksha Mishra is one of the few proficient professionals in the country with the expertise of ovarian tissue freezing. Passionate about all methods of fertility preservation, she had been fortunate to receive extensive training in this technique at none other than the Oxford University, UK during her training years. Indeed, Janini IVF is one of the few IVF centres of the entire country that boasts of having excellence in this particular technique available at our premises.
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