Lymphoma Survivor Has First Successful Ovarian Tissue Transplant

Ann Dauer played a major role in a medical advance. Her baby, due in the next few days, will mark the first successful birth after an ovarian tissue transplant in North America and only the second in the world. For the 33-year-old Dauer, the birth brings to a happy end a long journey during which she endured contradictory diagnoses, months of cancer treatment and the uncertainty of whether she and her husband, Greg, would enjoy a family.



Dauer was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in early 2001. Doctors talked optimistically about a recovery, but when Dauer was scanned for tumors in January 2002 with the expectation that none would be present, it was clear she was not in remission. The cancer seemed to be growing quickly. Dauer visited Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York where physicians found that she suffered from a rare combination of Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas.



The outlook wasn't great. There was a 25 percent chance of beating the condition. The recommended treatment, a stem-cell transplant from cells harvested from her own bone marrow combined with chemotherapy, carried a 10 percent chance of death and would leave her unable to have children. Since she didn't have time for egg harvest, the ovary preservation was the only option.



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