Emerging Technologies for Fertility Preservation in Female Patients

A wide variety of fertility preservation options in women is available; however, most of the currently available strategies are still experimental and do not guarantee subsequent fertility. The only established method is in vitro fertilization with embryo cryopreservation prior to cancer therapy. Other proposed strategies to preserve fertility in women with cancer include: storage of frozen ovarian tissue or the whole ovary for future transplantation, storage isolated follicles for in vitro growth and maturation and ovarian transposition before radiotherapy. The effectiveness of ovarian protection during chemotherapy with GnRH analogs is yet to be shown.