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Children and young people who go through cancer are often left infertile by the treatment and are faced with having to use donated eggs and sperm or adopting to have their own family.
The problem is especially difficult for children who develop cancer before they reach puberty because they cannot freeze their own eggs and sperm.
But now scientists have managed to grow eggs in the laboratory from samples of ovarian tissue taken from girls as young as five.
Immature eggs can be removed from the tissue and grown to maturity in special culture.
The next step will be to see if they can be fertilised to create viable embryos. These could then be frozen and stored for future use or the unfertilised eggs could be frozen using the latest techniques which have proven more effective.
Between 1,500 and 1,700 children under the age of 15 are diagnosed with cancer each year and half of those are under the age of five.
The most common form of cancer in children is leukaemia, which affects 35 per cent, followed by brain...
The problem is especially difficult for children who develop cancer before they reach puberty because they cannot freeze their own eggs and sperm.
But now scientists have managed to grow eggs in the laboratory from samples of ovarian tissue taken from girls as young as five.
Immature eggs can be removed from the tissue and grown to maturity in special culture.
The next step will be to see if they can be fertilised to create viable embryos. These could then be frozen and stored for future use or the unfertilised eggs could be frozen using the latest techniques which have proven more effective.
Between 1,500 and 1,700 children under the age of 15 are diagnosed with cancer each year and half of those are under the age of five.
The most common form of cancer in children is leukaemia, which affects 35 per cent, followed by brain...