Freezing of ovarian tissue in cancer (oncofreezing)

If you have cancer and still want to have children, you can choose to freeze your ovarian tissue (oncofreezing). There is a chance that your ovaries will no longer function after cancer treatment.

Also read: More difficult to get pregnant after cancer

Also read: Sexuality during and after cancer

Conditions for oncofreezing

To have ovarian tissue frozen, you must meet certain conditions:

• You are under 38 years old.
• There is a high chance of ovarian failure due to cancer treatment, making you infertile.
• The chance of metastases to your ovaries is small.
• Your doctor expects your pregnancy and birth to go normally. There are no major risks for you or your child.

Procedure and course of oncofreezing

For the procedure, you will be under general anesthesia. Using laparoscopy, the doctor will remove pieces of the ovary in the abdominal cavity. The outer layer of the ovary is cut into small strips. The immature eggs are in that layer. The strips are frozen and stored until you are ready to have them replaced.

After a successful replacement (transplantation), ovarian function can recover spontaneously and the menstrual cycle will restart. Follicles (egg sacs) can therefore develop again. The transplanted tissue can remain active for several years. During that period, spontaneous pregnancy or IVF treatment is possible.

Also read: Freezing eggs

Risks of oncofreezing

Sometimes a laparoscopy is not feasible, because there are adhesions in the abdomen and the operation is too risky. Then the procedure is stopped. As long as freezing ovarian tissue is an experimental treatment, no major abdominal surgery is performed.

There is a risk of re-implanting cancer cells when ovarian tissue is re-implanted. These are very small metastases that cannot be detected in advance. The size of this risk varies per type of cancer. Your gynaecologist can tell you more about this.

Oncofreezing reimbursement

The collection and freezing are fully reimbursed if this is done in a hospital that has an agreement with the Riziv. The collection of the ovarian tissue must also be done before the woman's 38th birthday.

A hospital with such an agreement may not charge supplements. If the fertility material still needs to be stored after ten years, the hospital may charge the patient a maximum of 50 euros per year.

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