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Here’s What You Should Know About a New Menopause Treatment
It’s unproven, and it comes with potential risks
A British fertility clinic in Birmingham, England, says it can stave off the unpleasant effects of menopause for 20 years by freezing a piece of a woman’s ovary when she’s young, then reintroducing it in her body later in life through transplantation.
The clinic, ProFam, reports that nine women aged 32 to 39 have undergone the freezing procedure, which costs £7,000 to £11,000 (about $8,500 to $13,300) and involves a small incision in the abdomen, called a keyhole surgery. Surgeons removed a piece of an ovary, cryopreserved it, and years later, plan to transplant it back into the women in a second surgery.
The procedure, called ovarian tissue transplantation, is nothing new in the world of fertility medicine. It has been performed for the past two decades as a way to preserve fertility for women and girls about to undergo chemotherapy and radiation, which can damage the ovaries. (For cancer patients who freeze ovarian tissue in their teens and twenties, the transplanted tissue can restore fertility later on for five years or more.)
But this is the first time it’s being used in an attempt to delay menopause. Doctors, however, are wary about offering the procedure to healthy women because it hasn’t been shown to be safe or effective.
“This is not ready for prime time,” says Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for the North American Menopause Society and director of the Women’s Health Clinic at the Mayo Clinic.
During menopause, the ovaries produce less estrogen and progesterone — the hormones that regulate menstruation — and stop producing eggs. As well as a loss of fertility, this change in hormone production can cause hot flashes, vaginal dryness, fatigue, sleep disturbances, weight gain, heart problems, and bone loss. Hormone therapy is commonly used to treat these symptoms.
Dr. Richard Anderson, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who performs ovarian tissue freezing for girls and women about to undergo cancer treatment, says there’s a risk that the transplanted tissue could trigger “unopposed estrogen” production in healthy women. He says this…
