Surgical Safety and Characteristics of Patients Donating Ovarian Biopsies During Elective Caesarean Sections: Insights From a Swedish Cohort Study

ABSTRACT Background Studying ovaries and follicles in detail is crucial to understanding their normal function and identifying factors contributing to ovarian disease and infertility. However, obtaining ovarian tissue for research is challenging, and instead of entire ovaries, small biopsies are often collected. In this study, we aimed to assess the surgical safety of ovarian biopsy by analyzing a retrospective cohort. Methods This study, conducted at Karolinska University Hospital, includes 331 women who donated ovarian biopsies during elective caesarean sections (2016–2022), compared to 2237 women who underwent the same procedure without donating tissue. The study group ranged in age from 21.5 to 46.8 years, while the reference group ranged from 15.3 to 56.3 years. Surgical and patient data were extracted from medical records (study group: September 2022–March 2023) and the Swedish Pregnancy Registry (reference group: November 2023). All data were pseudonymized to ensure confidentiality. Results Our analysis indicates that ovarian biopsy collection is safe, with no significant increase in bleeding or hospitalization time. Furthermore, women who donated biopsies showed no significant differences in health characteristics compared to those who did not. However, due to the relatively recent start of the cohort, no long‐term follow‐up analysis could be conducted, which is a limitation of this study. Conclusion Overall, our findings suggest that ovarian tissue biopsies collected during elective caesarean sections are both safe and representative, supporting their use in research to enhance our understanding of human ovarian biology.