From November 2 to 26, campaign of the biomedicine agency on sperm donation. It was said that freezing could not sustain life. It seems to be wrong. Starting with the example of sperm.
First there is what CECOS, the Center for the Study and Conservation of Human Eggs and Sperm, recommends: once frozen, sperm can be stored for as long as the patient wishes without altering the fertilizing power. Each year, the patient will receive a letter asking him whether or not he wishes to continue the conservation of his sperm straws.
There is an order of April 11, 2008 relating to the rules of good clinical and biological practice for medically assisted procreation which specifies: “ Beyond the first year of storage, it is necessary to ensure each year that the patient wishes to continue storage or not. Only the patient can express in writing his wish to continue or end the storage of his straws. In the event of death, the conservation of gametes or germinal tissues is terminated. »
Is there a limit? A few years ago, a European scientific journal exposed how a baby was born thanks to sperm frozen for 21 years.
We are in the 80s. The doctors discover in a man then 17 years old a cancer of the testicles. The treatments certainly lead to sterility. This is why, as is done regularly, the doctors offer him to collect his sperm and freeze it to become a father in the future.
And that’s what he wants 21 years later: in the year 2000, the young man has become a mature man who wants children. His sperm is always fresh. It is therefore recovered and thawed. In addition, oocytes, these cells of female reproduction, are taken from the ovaries of his young companion, and fertilization in a test tube is carried out with sperm which has remained 21 years in liquid nitrogen. Admittedly, several tests were necessary and the 5 samples which had been preserved were used. With success, since in 2002, a superb boy of 3.7 kg without any malformation was born. Asked, the specialists who examined the sperm with a magnifying glass, before carrying out the in vitro fertilization, are formal: it has retained excellent quality, even after 21 years of freezing; the spermatozoa had completely normal morphology and mobility, which makes them perfectly fertilizing.
The specialists evoke an even more spectacular case: more than thirty years.
This fact is reminiscent of a more frequent medical exploit: pregnancies obtained after cells have been transplanted into the ovaries which are still present, but sterilized by chemotherapy. These reproductive cells are frozen before cancer treatment.
One conclusion is clear: ova and sperm can be stored very well. And we can wonder if sperm would not be like good wine? The older he gets, the better he is? We are waiting for news of this English baby.
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