“We expected from this initial transplant, it was to demonstrate that the method was safe and that it was feasible,” says Orwig. Ultrasound shows that the tissue of the HSU testicles was untouched by the procedure, and its levels of hormones are normal. For now, its semen is still lacking semen.
More transplants may happen soon. The Orwiga syndrome has been banking tissue from children since 2011, and now some of these patients enter the reproductive age. His group received the consent of the American Food and Drug Administration for stem cell transplants, as well as testicular tissue as part A Clinical examination.
Transplanting immature testicular tissue is an alternative approach that scientists examine. In this technique, a piece of preserved tissue is hidden under the skin of the scrotum. We hope that the tissue will ripen and will eventually produce semen. IN monkeyThe Orwig and his syndrome transplanted testicular tissue, and then removed this vaccinated tissue eight to 12 months later and separated the seed from it. They used semen for egg fertilizer and transferred the forming embryos to replacement from female macaques, which caused alive delivery.
To recover the seed, a piece of tissue is cut off from the skin – a less invasive procedure than stem cell transplantation, which requires an opening of the testicle.
When Orwig’s syndrome first began to collect testicular tissue, he thought that they would get more stem cells, first insulating them from the tissue, and then freezing. They did it with the first several patients, including HSU. But later they discovered that they could get the same number of stem cells or more from the crying of all tissue, and then thawing and extraction of cells. This meant that HSU could only undergo stem cell transplantation, because only his cells were frozen. Other patients who frozen whole pieces of tissue will have the opportunity to try the stem cell transplant or tissue transplantation.
In January, scientists from Vrije Universiteit Brussels and Brussels 4 First testicular tissue transplant in a patient who underwent childhood chemotherapy. The patient will be monitored for a year, and its seed is tested for the presence of semen. After a year, doctors will remove some transplanted pieces of tissue to check the semen.
“In the case of those patients who receive life -saving anti -cancer therapies, as a result, they often leave permanently impaired fertility,” says Robert Brannigan, president of the American Society of Medicine Reproduction Medicine and Professor of Urology at Northwestern University. “It is difficult to say which approach will be more effective, but I think that both approaches are really worth further research.”
A similar procedure, called ovarian tissue transplantation, is available to women -frames and caused over 200 live births around the world. This is more advanced than the freezing of the testicles and transplant, because in adult men who need chemotherapy usually there is an option to freeze semen, while equivalent practice in women – deprivation of eggs – may last from two to three weeks, and patients may not have time to go before chemotherapy. When freezing eggs is not possible, you can collect a piece of ovarian tissue and store for later employ.
“It is very nice to see that we are a bit catching up so that we can offer our young men the same possibilities that, which, which we can offer to our young women,” says Jonathan Routh, a pediatric urologist from Duke Health. “Keeping children alive is always the number one goal, but allowing them to live that life is really the number two, and I think that this study will have an impact on the future.”
HSU is aware that technology is still in its infancy and may not work for it. Even if he can’t have a biological child, he hopes that these techniques will eventually open options for other childhood cancer patients. “This is a practice that is just beginning,” he says. “The more support, the more research and the more data, the better for people like me.”