TOKYO — A 30-year-old woman has given birth to a child using her egg frozen 12 years ago when she was being treated for cancer, the researcher who froze her eggs said on Friday.
It is rare for a woman to give birth to a child with an egg frozen for more than 10 years in Japan.
The woman in Aichi prefecture had her eggs harvested when she was a high school student. They were thawed 12 years later for external fertilisation with her husband's sperm. She gave birth to a baby boy in August after the fertilised egg was returned to her uterus.
According to Masashige Kuwayama, a researcher in reproductive technology at Repro-Support Medical Research Centre in Tokyo, the woman developed malignant lymphoma in 2001.
Treating the cancer requires antitumor drugs and a bone-marrow implant, but the antitumor drugs could deprive women of their ability to produce eggs.
Before starting treatment, the woman had two of her eggs harvested and then frozen with liquid nitrogen at a Tokyo clinic. The eggs were preserved at 196 Celsius below zero.
She overcame the disease a month later after receiving a bone-marrow implant.
"I'm very happy every day after giving birth to my child," the woman said, according to a nonprofit organisation which has contact with her.
"I'd like all patients with blood diseases to have hope and receive treatment," she was quoted as saying.
