Abstract
Infertility is a medical and social condition that affects millions of women worldwide and is today considered so far as a new disease. A considerable progress has been recently pursued in the field of the reproductive medicine and the infertility treatment may account for novel and modern procedures such as in vitro oocyte fertilization, egg donation, pregnancy surrogacy and preimplantation diagnosis. However, great interest has lately been reserved to the ovarian stem cells (OSCs) whose existence in woman ovaries has been proven. OSCs are thus suitable for developmental studies in infertility and in other clinical applications as endocrine derangements due to premature ovarian failure, or for infertility treatment after cancer chemotherapies, as well as in restoring the hormonal balance in postmenopausal age.
前言：不孕不育作为医学和社会问题影响着全世界成千上万的女性，并且如今被认为是一种新的疾病。目前，生殖医学已取得了相当大的进步，不孕不育的治疗推动一些创新和现代化的进程，如卵母细胞体外受精，卵子捐赠，妊娠代孕和胚胎植入前遗传诊断。然而，研究证实对存在于女性卵巢的卵巢干细胞（OSCs）一直有着极大的兴趣。OSCs适合不孕症的发展研究和其他临床应用，如由于卵巢功能早衰引起的内分泌失调，或癌症化疗后的不孕治疗，同时也能恢复绝经女性的激素平衡。
