Team of Australian Doctors Created IVF History With Ovarian Tissue Transplant

A team of doctors at Melbourne IVF and The Royal Melbourne Hospital, in the first week of September 2013, managed to help an infertile woman conceive with the world’s first IVF technology where new eggs were grown in the ovarian tissue and transplanted in woman’s abdomen. The doctors declared that the treatment will revolutionise the fertility treatment. The woman called Vali is now 26 weeks pregnant.

Vali was earlier rendered as infertile after her treatment for the ovarian cancer. The team of doctors helped the woman in growing egg follicles and producing two healthy eggs after transplanting her own frozen ovarian tissue into her abdomen.

It is important to note that earlier only one baby was born in Australia after the ovarian tissue transplant. Less than 30 babies have been grown like this across the world, but it is for the first time that the tissue was successfully transplanted at a completely different site in a body to where it was taken from. Gab Kovacs, the international medical director of Monash IVF, which did first successful Australian ovarian tissue transplant explained that this was a breakthrough treatment.

The sample of the ovarian tissue of Vali was extracted from her cancer-free ovary through keyhole surgery. It was then frozen. After seven years, the tissue was grafted on the left and right sides of the front wall of her abdomen. The tissue started functioning after a few months and also produced follicles and two single eggs with the mild dose of hormone treatment. Both these eggs were fertilised, implanted as well as became viable pregnancies.

Over 1300 women are diagnosed with the ovarian cancer every year in Australia. Of these, 39 percent are under the age of 60 years.