Novel Approach To Treating Infertility Caused By Aging Eggs
An Egyptian physician, Dr. Ali Farid Mohammed Ali and hi colleagues recently published an intriguing paper in Fertility Magazine, Volume 15, describing a novel approach to infertility causes by diminished ovarian reserve. This publication builds on the recent evidence that women of reproductive age may have ovarian stem cells capable of providing a continuous supply of eggs. Until these recent findings, it has long been the conventional wisdom that no “new eggs” can be formed after birth. This new information suggests that within the population of primordial cells in the ovary, there are active stem cells, which may (under the proper influence) become mature eggs. In an attempt to activate these ovarian stem cells, the Egyptian group removed blood from their patient and utilized a laboratory technique to separate the monocytes from the other blood cells. The authors chose monocytes as the sub-group of cells for direct injection into the ovaries because these cells have diverse immunologic capabilities within host tissues in other parts of the body. Monocytes are believed to play an important part in maintaining and supporting cell functions in other organs such as the heart and brain. The patient in their study underwent laparoscopy (telescopic examination of the pelvis) for the direct injection of 10 million monocytes into the deep of each ovary.
Post operatively the patients were followed carefully with hormonal assessments of ovarian function and the findings were compared to the patient’s pre-treatment hormone values. They report that the patient’s FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) level came down and her AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) level moved higher. Both of these findings support an improvement in ovarian function. Menstruation returned four months after treatment and the patient conceived in the 5th month following treatment. She went on to deliver a healthy female neonate at 37 weeks of gestation.
