It is widely known that cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy, can damage a woman’s eggs, affecting her fertility and making it difficult for her to get pregnant in the future.

There are a number of ways women are currently able to try and combat this, although none of them have guaranteed success. Cancer Research describes IVF as the most effective way of preserving fertility, which involves fertilising a woman’s egg with sperm outside of the womb, storing and freezing it until she’s ready to become pregnant, and then replanting the egg in the womb.

Similarly, egg freezing involves removing eggs from a woman’s womb, freezing them and later thawing them to become fertilised with an injection of sperm. This procedure isn’t recommended generally because of its low success rate.

Another option is ovarian tissue freezing, which involves a small operation to remove some ovarian tissue, which is then frozen. The tissue is put back once your cancer treatment has finished.

However, all of the above demand that doctors freeze the eggs or reproductive tissue once it has left the body – which can dramatically lower the success rate because of the continued change of temperature.

Now, thanks to the work done by a leading fertility centre in specialist hospital Rigshospitalet, in Copenhagen, Denmark, there is another option.

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