PM - Tuesday, 22 April , 2008 18:42:00 Reporter: Emily Bourke LISA MILLAR: In what's being hailed as a significant breakthrough in fertility research, scientists in Scotland have discovered a way to store and grow human eggs so they can be used in infertile women.



For women who are infertile because of cancer treatment, the technology may be used to jump-start their ability to have children.



It's good news for the hundreds of Australian women who have had ovarian tissue frozen before undergoing chemotherapy, because it's the first time a very small, young egg has been successfully grown outside a woman's body.



Emily Bourke reports.



EMILY BOURKE: For more than a decade, Australian women diagnosed with cancer have been freezing ovarian tissue in the hope that one day technology becomes so advanced that they can bear children after the sterilising effects of chemotherapy.



It now looks like that day is just a touch closer.



Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have worked out a way to take follicles, or the tiniest and most immature eggs, and mature them in a lab within ten days.



Dr Evelyn Telfer is behind the research.



EVELYN TELFER: What we have been able to do is to take those immature eggs, so the very earliest stage, and grow them in the lab to a point where we can then grow them to a further stage.



Now, we haven't taken them all the way to maturity, you know where you can fertilise them, but we've taken them to a point where no-one else has been able to take them to before.



EMILY BOURKE: Doctor Robert Gilchrist studies human reproductive biology and medicine at Adelaide University. He says the research is a breakthrough.



ROBERT GILCHRIST: The tragedy of the situation is that a young woman who's diagnosed with some sort of cancer and has to obviously very rapidly undergo treatment, has very few options.



And at the moment, all clinicians are doing is offering patients the opportunity to freeze ovarian tissue. Currently those tissues are sitting in the freezers with no option of being able to use them.



EMILY BOURKE: But this might mean that they can be used?



ROBERT GILCHRIST: That's right. That's right. This means that there is the potential in the future to use those tissues and with more research in this area, this really does offer promise.



EMILY BOURKE: Professor Michael Chapman is an IVF specialist from IVF Australia.



He says there are safety questions about growing an egg in ten days when it would normally take around 90.



MICHAEL CHAPMAN: Well I think the pitfalls relate to what's being used to stimulate those eggs to mature. The addition of growth hormones to cell culture mediums has certainly produced some unusual results in animal experiments, in terms of large animals; larger than expected. So I think there's a long way to go, in terms of being sure that that's all safe.



EMILY BOURKE: But Professor Chapman says the research is promising for the growing number of young women diagnosed with cancer and who face infertility.



MICHAEL CHAPMAN: I'm seeing a patient, one a fortnight with the terrible situation of being faced with a cancer in your reproductive years and you're faced with the possibility of losing your fertility because of the treatment's going to save your life.



EMILY BOURKE: Does this technology only apply to women who have been through cancer?



MICHAEL CHAPMAN: In relation to menopause, women who have already gone through menopause, unfortunately the egg stores have gone. So I don't think there's any hope for those ladies.



EMILY BOURKE: So you can't see this technology being used to prolong women's fertility?



MICHAEL CHAPMAN: I think if we're talking about 2020 this week, what this is going to be like in 2020, I suspect this will be a service that will be offered. But the community I think is going to have to think fairly strongly about whether it's something that we all want.



LISA MILLAR: Professor Michael Chapman from IVF Australia ending Emily Bourke's report.