Assessment of tissue injury in cryopreserved ovarian tissue.

Ovarian tissue banking is a developing technique aimed to preserve fertility in women at risk for premature ovarian failure (1–3). It entails cryopreservation of ovarian tissue with the option of autografting. Reports on the autografting of cryopreserved ovarian cortex segments describe the resumption of steroid production (4), follicle development (5, 6), and (in sheep) model successful pregnancies (7, 8). However, tissue loss due to procedural steps is expected to have detrimental effects on the reproductive potential of frozen-thawed ovarian grafts. We conducted a study in a porcine model to investigate how freezing and thawing affects ovarian tissue and whether warm ischemia time before the cryopreservation process has any added detrimental effects.