The small study conducted by scientists at the University of Edinburgh indicated that a therapy used to target Hodgkin’s lymphoma could increase the number of non-growing eggs in women’s ovaries.
Scientists analysed samples of ovary tissue donated by 14 women who had undergone chemotherapy alongside tissue from 12 healthy women.
They found that the ovaries from eight of the cancer patients, who had been treated with a drug combination known as ABVD, had a much greater incidence of immature, or non-growing, eggs compared with tissue from women who had received a different chemotherapy, or from healthy women of a similar age.
The ovary tissue was seen to be in healthy condition, resembling tissue from pre-pubescent ovaries.
“This is a very exciting discovery as it suggests that the ovary is indeed able to form new eggs and replenish the ovary,” says Dr Kirsty Walters from the University of NSW.
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Unlike men who continue to produce sperm, women are born with all their eggs. This is why conceiving is harder for women as they age.
“This finding may be very important clinically as currently the limiting factor in a woman’s reproductive lifespan is the number of viable eggs she has available,” Dr Walters told The Weekly.
“If the ovary was capable of generating good quality new eggs then potentially a woman’s reproductive lifespan could be extended allowing older women a greater chance of conceiving, and this potentially may also provide a new treatment for younger women with infertility issues,” she explains.
Researchers say it is too soon to link the outcome to fertility, saying more research is needed to examine each of the four drugs that combine to make ABVD.
“This study involves only a few patients, but its findings were consistent and its outcome may be significant and far-reaching,” says Professor Evelyn Telfer at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Biological Sciences.
“We need to know more about how this drug combination acts on the ovaries, and the implications of this.”
