Ovarian tissue collection for cryopreservation in pediatric age: laparoscopic technical tips.

As the number of young girls subjected to chemo and radiotherapy is steadily increasing it is our duty to try to preserve their future fertility and ovarian function. A possibility is to collect ovarian samples, cryopreserve them and reimplant the tissue when the treatments are over. We report our 11 year experience with the use of laparoscopy to collect ovarian tissue samples. In particular we focus on the details of the surgical technique. The procedure was performed in 54 patients affected by malignancies or pathologies requiring chemo or radiotherapy, with good results. Cryopreservation seems to be a good option to preserve future fertility although it is still an experimental method.