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First baby born after ovarian tissue transplant
Last Updated: 2004-09-24 10:02:43 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By David Lawsky
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Belgian woman has given birth to the first baby born after an ovarian tissue transplant, a medical breakthrough that brings hope to young cancer patients whose fertility may be damaged by treatment.
The baby, a healthy girl named Tamara, was born at 7:05 p.m. Thursday in a hospital in Brussels and weighed 8.2 pounds. Her mother is Ouarda Touirat, 32, a hospital spokeswoman said.
"The mother and baby are in excellent health," the spokeswoman told Reuters. "This astonishing feat gives tremendous hope to all women rendered infertile by cancer treatments," the hospital added in a statement.
Doctors led by Professor Jacques Donnez, head of the Department of Gynaecology and Andrology at the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, removed and froze ovarian tissue from Touirat in 1997, when she was 25.
Touirat had stage IV Hodgkin's lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Such treatments can save patients' lives but can also damage or destroy their fertility.
The ovarian transplant was carried out six years after her treatment, when doctors concluded she was free of cancer. Four months after the ovarian tissue was transplanted Touirat's ovarian function was restored.
Tamara was conceived naturally after the transplant.
UNPRECEDENTED BIRTH METHOD
"This unprecedented event, the culmination of 10 years of research by Professor Donnez and his team funded by the Televie and the FNRS, brings immense joy to the parents for whom this baby represents a true miracle," the hospital said.
The researchers published an article online in the medical journal The Lancet, at thelancet.com, which gave details of the procedure, illustrated with photographs.
Using keyhole surgery, Donnez and his team took small samples from Touirat's left ovary, cooled them to minus 196 degrees centigrade and stored them in liquid nitrogen.
"Ovarian tissue cryopreservation should be an option offered to all young women diagnosed with cancer, in conjunction with other existing options for fertility preservation," Donnez said in a statement.
Women are born with a finite number of eggs, which are formed in follicles in the ovaries. The number of eggs diminishes as a woman ages until there are very few left and menopause begins.
Although the aim of the ovarian tissue transplant is to help young infertile cancer patients to become mothers, the advance could also enable women to postpone childbearing past the natural menopause by freezing tissue when they are young and having it transplanted later.
Other teams of scientists have been working on ovarian transplantation but the Belgian team said they were the first to achieve a pregnancy and now a birth.
Donnez and his team "have just achieved what no other team has ever managed before -- enabling a young patient cured of cancer to become a mother following autotransplantation of cryopreserved ovarian tissue," the hospital said.
(Additional reporting by Pat Reaney in London)
SOURCE: The Lancet, September 25, 2004.
Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Vitamin E may help reduce diabetes risk
Last Updated: 2004-09-23 12:05:05 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A daily dose of vitamin E may help delay the onset of type 2 diabetes in people at high risk of the disease, preliminary research suggests.
Researchers in New Zealand found that high-dose vitamin E appeared to temporarily improve insulin resistance -- a precursor to type 2 diabetes -- among 41 overweight adults.
Though the improvement was short-lived, another diabetes risk factor -- elevations in a liver enzyme called alanine transferase -- changed for the better throughout the six-month stud
"These results suggest that vitamin E could have a role to play in delaying the onset of diabetes in at-risk individuals," Dr. Patrick J. Manning and colleagues at the University of Otago in Dunedin report in the journal Diabetes Care.
Some past studies have reached similar conclusions. A recent study found that people whose diets had a healthy dose of antioxidants, including vitamin E, had a lower diabetes risk than those with lower antioxidant intakes. And vitamin E has been shown to help some diabetics gain better control over their blood sugar.
The new study included 80 overweight adults ages 31 to 65. Overweight and obese individuals are at increased risk of developing insulin resistance, in which the body loses sensitivity to the hormone insulin, causing blood sugar levels to soar.
According to Manning's team, excess fat may speed the production of oxygen free radicals, potentially cell-damaging byproducts of normal metabolism. Compounding this, overweight people tend to have low levels of antioxidants, which counter the effects of free radicals. It's hypothesized that the resulting oxidative stress may contribute to insulin resistance.
To see whether vitamin E can alter oxidative stress and insulin resistance, Manning and his colleagues randomly assigned study participants to take either vitamin E or a placebo pill every day for six months. For the first three months, the treatment group took 800 International Units (IU) of vitamin E each day, followed by 1,200 IU per day for the next three months -- doses many times the recommended dietary allowance of 22 IU.
The researchers found that at both the three- and six-month marks, plasma peroxides, which are markers of oxidative stress, had fallen in the vitamin E group. After three months, blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity had also improved, but the gains did not remain through the sixth month.
On the other hand, the researchers found, there was a lasting decline in blood levels of alanine transferase liver enzymes, elevations of which have been tied to a heightened diabetes risk. The liver, the authors note, plays a key role in sugar and insulin metabolism, and is the main site of insulin clearance from the blood.
According to Manning's team, vitamin E may boost insulin sensitivity and decrease diabetes risk in a number of ways, including by reducing oxidative stress to cells and by improving liver function.
However, the researchers note, it's unclear why blood sugar levels and insulin resistance improved only temporarily, when markers of oxidative stress and liver function continued to look better. A larger study, they conclude, is needed to clarify the picture.
SOURCE: Diabetes Care, September 2004.
Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
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