In-vitro spermatogenesis

The survival rate of children diagnosed with cancer has improved thanks to more effective radio- and chemotherapy. Although for longtime it was assumed that children were more resistant to gonadotoxic treatments, many children (not only those who need aggressive treatment including chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation) are at risk for life-long sterility.

Since spermatogenesis only starts after puberty, prepubertal boys cannot benefit from semen banking before treatment. Because the progenitor cells, i.e. the spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs), are present in the testis, cryopreservation of SSCs or testicular tissue followed by SSC transplantation may prevent sterility in young boys exposed to gonadotoxic treatments.

In the past 15 years, our research group biology of the testis (BITE) has performed pioneering work concerning the translation of this strategy towards a clinical application. However, for patients with blood cancers or metastasizing cancers, tissue that has been obtained before cancer treatment, might contain malignant cells, causing malignancy recurrence after transplantation. As decontamination strategies have proven to be inefficient, for these patients, sterility could be circumvented by in-vitro spermatogenesis (IVS). Using the in-vitro generated spermatozoa in artificial reproductive techniques would be the only safe option to offer these patients a chance to father their genetically own children.