A Connecticut doctor has performed the first ovary transplant in New England, giving hope to a woman, 30, who went into early menopause after a bone marrow transplant 18 years ago.
But it’s by no means a first for Dr. Kutluk Oktay, who is affiliated with Yale New Haven Hospital and originally developed the procedure, performing his first transplant in 1999.
Oktay, a world renowned fertility expert who is also a professor Yale School of Medicine, said it will be months before it’s known whether the patient becomes pregnant.
But there are hundreds of babies and children out there to prove that it’s worked through the world many times before.
Talk about a meaningful profession.
“I love what I do ” Oktay said. “I’m an innovator. I help women achieve their dreams.”
Oktay said he’s hoping YNHH becomes the “go to” place for the transplants.
He said it’s a “delicate” surgery done through robotics — in which he is expert — so an open surgery that would carry more risks isn’t necessary. There are few doctors who can perform the procedure, he said.
Two-thirds of the women who get the transplant get pregnant, he said. The surgery can also reverse menopause and extend fertility, the doctor said.
Oktay said he’s seen women have up to three children after the surgery.
He developed the procedure around animal studies in the United Kingdom.
The patient who received the transplant recently at YNHH, now in her 30s, underwent a bone marrow transplant at the age of 20. The lifesaving treatment brought on premature menopause.
Fortunately, her family had heard of a groundbreaking research project involving ovarian tissue, cryopreservation, at the time when Oktay was developing the procedure as part of an experiment.
Cryopreservation is a process that preserves biological materials by freezing them at low temperatures.
Oktay and his team all those years ago removed one of the patient’s ovaries and stripped off the surface tissue, which contained hundreds of thousands of immature eggs.
In preparation for the recent transplant, tissues were tested to ensure they were in good condition.
The vials of tissues were thawed in the operating room and first sutured onto a tissue scaffold, reconstructing the ovarian graft.
The new ovarian construct was then sutured on the patient’s remaining menopausal ovary, using the robotic surgery.
It was so minimally invasive because of the robotics technique — for which Oktay had additional training — that the patient was able to return home the day after her procedure.
The procedure is different than egg or embryo freezing as it restores natural ovarian function, enabling women to conceive on their own and reversing menopause, a spokeswoman for the hospital said.
Oktay, a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Yale School of Medicine is also leader of Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Health, Center for Fertility Preservation.
