Human eggs are matured in lab

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 3, 2007

LYON, France - Doctors have removed eggs from young female cancer patients and - for the first time - brought the eggs to maturity before freezing them, giving the girls a better chance to one day have children.

Previously, scientists had thought viable eggs could be obtained only from girls who had undergone puberty.

"We didn't expect young girls to have eggs that could withstand the process of maturation, " which involves adding hormones, said Dr. Ariel Revel, who led the research at the Hadassah Hospital in Israel.

The research will be presented today at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Lyon.

In related work, Canadian doctors on Monday announced the first birth of a baby from eggs matured in a laboratory, frozen, thawed and then fertilized - a key development that holds promise for infertile women. The year-old girl was born to a woman in Canada, doctors said, and three other women are pregnant.

In the study involving girls with cancer, Revel surgically extracted the eggs and then artificially matured them, with the idea of implanting them one day should the patient wish to conceive.

To obtain the eggs, Revel and his colleagues performed surgery on 18 patients ages 5 to 20. Of 167 eggs, 41 were successfully matured, including some from prepubescent donors. They were then indistinguishable from those of older women, Revel said.

[Last modified July 3, 2007, 01:10:41]