2012;14:E1The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist

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Book review

Principles and Practice of FertilityPreservationEditors Jacques Donnez and S Samuel Kim

This textbook brings together experts involved in all aspectsof fertility preservation. The literature regarding assistedreproduction, surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, as wellas non-cancer-related topics, is extensively reviewed. A widevariety of opinion is sought, mainly from Europe and NorthAmerica.

The book is divided into ten sections and starts with anexcellent three-chapter introduction to the history of assistedconception, the effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy onreproduction and the effects of treatments for non-cancerousconditions.

Section two focuses on cancer biology, epidemiologyand treatment; section three on reproductive biologyand cryobiology, demonstrating various methods of tissuepreservation. A section discussing fertility preservationstrategies in the male follows. This includes analysis of theeffectiveness of hormonal suppression, cryopreservation andtransplantation of cryopreserved spermatozoa, spermatogoniaand testicular tissue. A chapter is also reserved for thereproductive implications of the use of donor sperm.

Medical and surgical strategies for the preservation of fertilityin the female are reviewed comprehensively in three chapters,

which include explanations of the rationale for the useof GnRH agonists with chemotherapy. Surgery for fertilitypreservation in both cervical and ovarian cancer, includingthe techniques of ovarian transposition and trachelectomy, isreviewed comprehensively. Assisted reproduction techniquessuch as embryo and oocyte cryopreservation and vitrificationare also explored in some detail.

It is unfortunate that in this otherwise outstanding publicationthe chapters concerning the preservation of female fertilitydo not include a discussion of the management of earlyendometrial cancer in young women.

Section seven of the book deals with the management ofovarian tissue and the whole ovary in terms of preservationand transplantation, while section eight discusses how folliclescan be matured in vitro.

The penultimate section deals with the future, including theuse of pluripotent stem cells and the rather fanciful, butnevertheless exciting, prospect of an artificial ovary. The authorpoints out that this is the first publication on the subject. Thefinal section deals with the all-important subject of ethical,legal and religious considerations, including the psychologicalimpact of a cancer diagnosis.

There are few areas of the book that I can criticise. Indeed, Ibelieve my review cannot do it justice: the expertise involvedis so wide-ranging that no individual reviewer would havesufficient expertise to do so. There is only one serious omissionfrom this book: the treatment of endometrial cancer in youngwomen. All other aspects of fertility preservation are included.The text is easy to read and explanations for the uninitiatedare careful and thorough. The editors have achieved the almostimpossible: a textbook that is as informative as it is interesting.I would recommend it to anyone who treats illnesses that canaffect fertility in both men and women.

Reviewer Geoffrey Lane MD FRCOG FFRSH

Consultant Gynaecological OncologistGuy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

Cambridge University Press, 2011ISBN: 9780521196956Hardback, 536 pages, £95.0010.1111/j.1744-4667.2011.00086.x

C© 2012 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists E1