Edinburgh transplants frozen testicular tissue in UK fertility first
NHS Lothian doctors have transplanted frozen testicular tissue into a 19-year-old whose chemotherapy left him with no sperm in his semen. The procedure, carried out in August, is the first reported in the UK and the second worldwide; doctors will examine some of the tissue after eight months to see whether it has produced sperm.
Bottom line — More than 1,200 people in the UK have stored testicular tissue, but the Edinburgh patient’s results are still pending.
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The patient’s tissue was removed and frozen in 2023, before chemotherapy for a serious blood disorder, according to the Guardian.
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The University of Edinburgh says prepubertal boys cannot bank sperm because they have not started producing it; the stored tissue contains cells that may produce sperm from puberty onwards.
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The Edinburgh research programme began in 2015 with funding from Children with Cancer UK, according to the University of Edinburgh.
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More than 3,100 people worldwide have had testicular tissue stored for potential future clinical use, the University of Edinburgh reports.
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A human procedure in Belgium earlier this year produced mature sperm from transplanted tissue, according to the University of Edinburgh; the UK patient’s outcome is not yet known.
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Rod Mitchell told ITV News that sperm produced from the transplanted tissue would still need to be used in IVF.