SpermatoGonial stem cells could represent hope for patients with infertility after cancer treatments.
For the first time a transplant of SpermatoGonial stem cellsable to produce spermatozoa, was performed in a human patient. A young man little more than twenty years old underwent the procedure in an attempt to regain fertility compromised by the treatments against a bone cancer received as a child. Before the treatments, a sample of the Precursors of the spermatozoa had been taken from the patient’s and cryocnior testicles.
The details of the transplant, which could open new paths of care against male infertility, are described in an article awaiting revision on the server Medrxiv. If it should lead to good results, possibility not clarified by the study in questionthe procedure would give hope to procreate in particular to men who at a young age had to undergo chemotherapy.
Damage before time. Loose oncological treatments can damage, together with cancer cells, also healthy cells or those in the division phaselike SpermatoGonial stem cells. These are found in the testicles before puberty, and mature in sperm during adolescence, thanks to the increase in the levels of the testosterone hormone. Damage to these cells before they can free their potential can lead to infertility. And it does so even more definitive way In patients in prepublic age which, unlike adults, do not have the possibility of crystally crystal clear sperm sample before therapies.
The intervention. The man followed in the study was subjected to a technique performed so far only in primates and micewhich thanks to the transplantation of the sperm steams later had a healthy offspring. As a child, the patient had lent himself to the sampling of SpermatoGonic stemmars performed by a team of the medical center of the University of Pittsburgh. Using a needle led by ultrasound, the doctors had taken the cells from the testicular networka maze of tubules communicating inside the connective tissue of the testicle that connects the seminiferous tubules together, where the spermatozoa are produced.
Transplantation. The same procedure inverse It was implemented when the man became an adult. The cells, which had been cryoprewed, were carefully reintroduced in the semine tubuleswith the hope that they would mature and began to produce spermatozoa, imitating the processes that naturally occur during puberty.
For now, doctors confirm that there have been no damage to the testicular tissues and that the patient’s hormonal levels are normal.
However, at the moment A sperm production has not yet been detectedperhaps for the reduced number of stem cells that had been possible to initially withdraw.
Open questions. Scientists will continue to observe the progress in the maturation of spermatozoa with half -yearly exams. The procedure It is not free of medical risks and by ethical questions: being a transplant, there is still a small risk of rejection with possible inflammatory reactions; In addition, the cells taken at the time of a neoplasm could contain dangerous mutations and give rise to tumors once reintroduced.
Finally, since it is a withdrawal to be performed during childhood, one cannot be completely sure that the patient can consciously express a consent to the operation and understand completely risks and hopes of a long -year process.
