Reimplantation of Sperm Cells After Cancer Treatment May Be Possible

Sperm-producing cells have been transplanted from one type of mouse into another, a feat that could eventually prove useful for young boys undergoing cancer therapy. Certain types of chemotherapy and radiation can cause harmful mutations in sperm and the cells that produce them, so men with cancer often have sperm frozen and stored for future use. This cannot be done for young boys who have not yet gone through puberty.

Molecular biologist Ralph L. Brinster and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania report in the January Nature Medicine that mice receiving the sperm cells were able to impregnate female mice.

The findings suggest that immature sperm cells could be removed from young boys before cancer therapy, frozen for storage and then reimplanted after treatment was complete.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II