Scientists report baby boy born to a cancer patient who froze eggs prior to treatment

Scientists are reporting what they say is the first baby to be born from freezing and fertilizing immature eggs from a cancer patient. Many young cancer patients face the risk of infertility as a result of treatment, and the new report could offer hope for others. In a new letter to the editor in Annals of Oncology, researchers in France describe retrieving immature eggs from a 29-year-old woman before she underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer. The removed eggs were given more hormones to prepare them for fertilization and then frozen. Five years later, the woman was deemed infertile as attempts to become pregnant for a year after she completed cancer treatment were unsuccessful. Scientists then unfroze her preserved eggs, injected them with sperm, and one of the resulting embryos was transferred to the woman's womb. Nine months later, the woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy.