Fears ovarian transplant breakthrough will lead to ‘designer’ babies

FEARS have been raised that an ovarian tissue transplant procedure which helped a woman get pregnant after being made infertile by cancer treatment could be misused by those looking to have “designer” children.

It was revealed yesterday that a 32-year-old patient is the first in the world to become pregnant as a result of the experimental procedure.

Despite being hailed as a medical breakthrough and a ray of hope for women undergoing cancer treatment, ethical concerns over its possible use to delay the menopause were also raised.

Josephine Quintavalle, director of the Committee on Reproductive Ethics in Britain, said it should be impressed on women that they should have children “when nature intended”, in their mid-20s.

She said: “We should not be using this technology lightly. I sincerely hope it is not used as a lifestyle choice for designing when you want to have children.

“We must absolutely not use it as a way of depositing your fertility in a bank for social reasons. We should give a clear message to women that they should have children when nature intended, which is in their mid-20s.”

However, she also welcomed the pregnancy as a great breakthrough.

Professor Jack Scarisbrick, national chairman of the anti-abortion group Life, predicted that the treatment would be abused.

He said: “Nature intended for the end of a woman’s procreative career to be a full stop, for the sake of her children and herself.

“This is a very important development, but trying to defeat nature is not the right use for it. Using it to recover from a disease like cancer, on the other hand, is completely acceptable.”

Tissue samples from the patient’s ovaries were taken in 1997 and frozen before she underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy for an advanced lymph cancer.

After the treatment, the ovarian tissue was thawed and implanted back into her pelvis. In January, 11 months after the transplantation, doctors discovered she was pregnant.

Now the woman is not only free from Hodgkin’s lymphoma but also expecting a baby girl in October.

Experts and charity support groups hailed the achievement by a team in Belgium as a landmark in fertility treatment.

It opens the way for thousands of women whose ovaries have been destroyed by cancer treatment to be mothers. But there are also major ethical implications, because potentially the technique could be used to beat the menopause.

A career woman nearing the end of her reproductive life could, for instance, choose to have ovarian tissue frozen and restored at a later date. She would then be capable of getting pregnant after the start of the menopause. News of the breakthrough came at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Berlin.