Oophorectomy for Fertility Preservation via Reduced-Port Laparoscopic Surgery

Abstract

Background. For fertility preservation of women patients scheduled to undergo chemotherapy or radiotherapy, unilateral oophorectomy was performed, and the ovary was cryopreserved. Methods. Two-port surgery was conducted in 3 patients, and single-port surgery using a single-incision laparoscopic surgery port in 3. An 18-G Cathelin needle equipped with a syringe was directly inserted transabdominally to reach the small follicle on the ovarian surface; then, follicular fluid was recovered by aspiration through the syringe as with in vitro fertilization procedures, and immature oocytes were collected from the resulting culture medium under microscopy and cryopreserved. Vitrification of the ovarian tissue was performed using the cryotissue method. Results. The operative time and estimated blood loss were 39.7 minutes (17-57) and 8.6 mL (2-20), and the numbers of ovarian cortical tissues and immature oocytes collected were 10.1 (5.5-15) and 16.3 (0-36), respectively. Conclusions. It is suggested that fertility preservation operations before chemotherapy or radiotherapy can be safely done using reduced-port surgery.