It is often a double punishment: women who have been treated for breast cancer can sometimes no longer be pregnant *. A new technique can give them hope.
A 34-year-old French woman who could not get pregnant after treatment for this cancer was able to give birth to a child thanks to a new technique consisting in collecting her immature eggs before freezing them.
"This success represents an important advance in the field of fertility preservation," rejoiced Michaël Grynberg, director of the department of reproductive medicine at Antoine Béclère de Clamart hospital (Hauts-de-Seine), where this "world first" took place in the context of cancer.
Sometimes dangerous hormonal stimuli
Each year in France, more than 2,500 women under the age of 40 develop breast cancer, according to the Institut Curie. The chemotherapy used to treat breast cancer can be toxic to the ovaries and affect their fertility. Often these young people are offered to freeze their oocytes to preserve their chances of future pregnancy.
Normally, eggs that have reached maturity are taken after hormonal stimulation, but in hormone-dependent breast cancer, as was the case with Professor Grynberg's patient, stimulation is contraindicated.
Oocytes brought to maturity in laboratory
His team therefore took seven immature oocytes before maturing them in the laboratory for 48 hours, then vitrifying them (an ultra-rapid freezing method which allows better conservation), details an article published Wednesday in the journal Annals of Oncology.
The patient was then treated for her breast cancer with chemotherapy. After five years without relapse, she was declared cured but could not conceive, due to the treatments received.
Her oocytes were then thawed and inseminated in vitro. One of the five eggs thus formed was successfully implanted, and the patient gave birth in July 2019 to a healthy baby boy named Jules.
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This in vitro maturation technique (IVM) had already made it possible to give birth to children after immediate fertilization and implantation, without freezing.
The same team, in collaboration with the Jean-Verdier hospital, also announced that it had used it in June 2019, in association with embryonic vitrification, to allow a young woman with early menopause to give birth to twins.
But "so far, there has been no successful pregnancy in patients treated for cancer from eggs that have been subjected to both IVM and vitrification," says Annals of Oncology in a press release.
Two other pregnant women
"We show that this technique, even if it is probably a little less effective today" than the freezing of oocytes taken at maturity, "can still allow to have children," said Michaël Grynberg to the AFP.
Two other pregnancies are currently in progress at the Clamart University Hospital after using the same technique, he added.
* In breast cancer, about 40% of 40-year-old women become infertile because of their treatment, and 15% to 20% of 30-year-old women, estimates the obstetrician-gynecologist.
