Sperm cells were used for the first time in an attempt to restore fertility

“What we expected from this initial planting is to prove that the method was safe and that it was possible,” says Orfig. Ultrasound shows that HSU’s testicular tissue was not harmed by the procedure and that the levels of his hormone are at the normal rate. Currently, semen still lacks sperm.

More transplants can occur soon. The Orwig team has been a child’s testicular tissue since 2011, and now some of these patients enter childbearing age. His collection received permission from the Institutional Review Council to perform stem cell transplants, as well as testicular tissues, as part of a Clinical.

The transplantation of the immature testicular tissue is an alternative approach that researchers explore. In this technique, a piece of preserved tissue is placed under the skin of the scrotum. Hope is that the tissues will ripen and finally produce sperm. in MonkeysOrwig and his team cultivated the testicular tissues, then removed those grafted tissues after eight to 12 months and extracted sperm from it. They used sperm to fertilize eggs and transport the resulting embryos to an alternative to female makaks, which led to a live birth.

To recover sperm, a piece of tissue is cut off from the skin – a less invasive procedure than stem cell transplantation, which requires opening the testicle.

When the Orwig team for the first time started collecting testicular tissues, I think they will get more stem cells by isolating them from the tissues first and then freezing them. They did this with their first few illness, including HSU. But later, they discovered that they could get more stem cells or more than whole parts of the tissues, then melting them later and extracting cells. This means that HSU can only undergo a stem cell transplant, because its cells are only frozen. Other patients who froze full pieces of tissues will have the choice of trying stem cells or tissue transplantation.

In January, researchers at VRIJE Universiteit Brssel and Brussels IVF in Belgium announced that they had performed a performance The first testicular tissue transplant In a patient who underwent chemotherapy in childhood. The patient will be monitored for one year, with a semen test for the presence of sperm. After a year, doctors will remove some of the pieces planted from tissues to check sperm.

“For these patients who get life -saving cancer treatments, they often leave with poor fertility permanently as a result,” said Robert Brangan, president of the American Republican Medicine and Urology Professor at North Western University. ))

A similar procedure is called ovarian tissue transplantation, for female cancer patients and led to more than 200 live births around the world. It is more advanced than freezing and transplantation in the testicle because in adults who need chemotherapy, there is usually an option to freeze sperm, while equivalent practice in women – they wander in eggs – it can take from two to three weeks, and patients may not have time to undergo before starting chemotherapy. When freezing eggs are not possible, a piece of tissue from the ovary can be collected and stored for later use.

“It is very good to see that we are chasing somewhat so that we can provide our youth the same types of opportunities that we can offer to our young women,” says Jonathan Roth, a child’s urologist at Duke Health. “Keeping children always alive is the first goal, but allowing them to live in life is really the second goal, and I think this is where this study will have already an effect on the future.”

HSU realizes that technology is still in its cradle, and it may not work in its favor. Even if he cannot have a biological child, he hopes that these techniques will eventually open options for other childhood cancer patients. He says, “This is a practice that has just started,” he says. “The more support, more search and more data that we have, the better for people gay at the bottom of the line.”