I recently received an e-mail from a patient who asked for ways of stem cell treatment for infertility. Although still a long way off, a stem cell procedure to treat male infertility has already been used for years:
If radiation treatment or chemotherapy for cancer is necessary in a prepubescent boy who does not yet have ejaculations, a testicular biopsy is performed in advance. The stanza contains sperm stem cells. These will be frozen at −20 °C and can be thawed later and injected into the testicles. All viable sperm stem cells will be killed by radiotherapy/chemotherapy, but from the injected sperm stem cells mature sperm cells will develop later.
Other forms of treatment for male or female infertility using germinal stem cells are still in the experimental stage in animals. Here stem cells are harvested from the testis, expanded in culture medium, matured into sperm cells and then used for fertilization. The reinjection of expanded stem cells in the tubules of the testis is possible and has already been carried out successfully in animal experiments.
Currently exciting developments in the field of stem cell therapy are going on. I will keep you up to date,
DDr. Heinrich, MD