Bone Marrow Transplant Restores Fertility After Chemotherapy

Transplant News,  Sept, 2007  

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A study from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston demonstrates that female mice that receive bone marrow transplantation after fertility-destroying chemotherapy can go on to have successful pregnancies throughout their normal reproductive life.

The report, in the Aug. 1 Journal of Clinical Oncology, verifies that donor marrow can restore fertility in female mice through an as-yet unidentified mechanism. While donor-derived egg cells or oocytes were observed in the ovaries of marrow recipients, all pups born were from the recipients' own eggs. Of 10 female mice that received bone marrow transplants one week after chemotherapy, all but one achieved several successful pregnancies during the study period. One gave birth to four litters, one gave birth to five litters, and seven gave birth to six litters of pups.

All pups were offspring of the recipients. In a comparison group of 13 females that did not receive marrow after chemotherapy, 10 did become pregnant, but none delivered more than three litters.

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