WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors are reporting a medical first: A Danish woman has given birth separately to two children after undergoing a transplant of ovarian tissue that was taken out of her body, frozen and then implanted after she underwent successful bone cancer treatment.

Mrs. Stinne Holm Bergholdt of Odense, Denmark, gave birth in 2007 after fertility treatment and again in 2008, her doctor reported in the Feb. 25 online issue of the journal Human Reproduction. Both children are girls.

"This is the first time in the world that a woman has had two children from separate pregnancies as a result of transplanting frozen/thawed ovarian tissue," her doctor, Claus Yding Andersen, said in a news release from the journal's publisher. "These results support cryopreservation of ovarian tissue as a valid method of fertility preservation and should encourage the development of this technique as a clinical procedure for girls and young women facing treatment that could damage their ovaries."

Worldwide, nine children have been born after receiving transplants of the mother's own ovarian tissue, according to the report.

Part of Bergholdt's right ovary was removed and frozen prior to chemotherapy, which caused menopause. She became pregnant after ovarian tissue was transplanted into her body, and her ovary began to function again.

In the news release, Bergholdt, who's now 32, said the second pregnancy wasn't expected. "It was a very nice surprise to find out that my body was now functioning normally and that we were having a baby without having to go through the fertility treatment. It was indeed a miracle!"

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on ovarian cancer.

FRIDAY, Feb. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A new study is among the first to hint that gene therapy could become a weapon against the virus that causes AIDS.

However, any treatment remains far from being ready for use by patients, and would likely be expensive, experts said.

Still, the research is "a step in the direction of using gene therapy" to treat HIV patients, said Dr. Pablo Tebas, co-author of a new study and associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Existing AIDS drugs allow many patients to live fairly normal lives despite being infected with HIV. But they can cause a variety of side effects, and some patients become immune to them over time.

"The next big challenge is going to be: Can you cure the infection or control it to a level that allows patients to not take these expensive and complex medications that can be toxic?" Tebas said.

One possible solution is to help the body fight off HIV without the use of drugs. That's where gene therapy comes in, Tebas said. "Can you make the patient resistant so they can control HIV on their own?"

In the new study, the Pennsylvania team tested a gene therapy approach in which scientists first remove immune cells from patients, tinker with their genes and then put them back into the bodies of the patients.

Eight HIV-infected people took part in the study. After the genetically modified cells were placed back into the patients, "we stopped HIV treatment and tried to see what happened," Tebas said.

The findings are scheduled to be reported this week at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco.

The levels of HIV fell below the expected levels in seven of the eight patients, the team found. Signs of the virus disappeared altogether in one patient, although that happens sometimes -- it's not an indication that the disease is cured -- and the researchers aren't sure why it happened in this case.

"We need to understand why it happened and see if we can reproduce that in the general population," Tebas said.

It's still early in the development of the treatment: the current research is in phase 2 of the customary three phases of research that new medical treatments go through.

If gene therapy does become a treatment for HIV patients, it may be best for those who aren't doing well on existing antiretroviral drugs, said John Rossi, chairman of the molecular and cellular biology department at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope Medical Center near Los Angeles.

"There are thousands of people who are completely resistant to all the drugs that are out there, and this is one more option they could have," Rossi said.

But the cost of the treatment would probably be high, he added, perhaps reaching around $20,000. And it's not clear how long the treatment would last, he said, since the immune cells aren't permanent.

More information

There's more on gene therapy for another condition, cancer, at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

THURSDAY, Feb. 18 (HealthDay News) -- As women age, they receive fewer benefits from frequent screening for human papillomavirus (HPV) and vaccinations to prevent the virus, new research shows.

While infection with certain types of HPV can lead to cervical cancer, there is a vaccine that can help protect against many of these HPV infections.

However, this study of Costa Rican women, aged 18 to 97, concluded that the benefits of HPV vaccination and screening are low among women over the age of 41. The rate of newly detected cancer-causing HPV infections declined with age, ranging from 35 percent in women aged 18 to 25 to 13.5 percent in women aged 42 and older.

The researchers also said that new HPV infections among women at any age typically do not progress to cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 2 (CIN 2) or CIN 3, which are precursors for cervical cancer.

"Evidence that newly detected infections in older women do not harbor a higher risk of persistence or CIN 2 [or worse disease] than in younger women, and that older women acquire fewer new infections, indicates that the possible benefit of vaccinating older women is much reduced," wrote study authors Dr. Ana Cecilia Rodriguez and colleagues of the Proyecto Epidemiologico Guanacaste, Fundacion INCIENSA, in San Jose, Costa Rica.

The study was published online Feb. 15 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

More information

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has more about HPV infection  .

FRIDAY, Feb. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Jealousy can dampen romance and damage sexual intimacy, especially if it occurs within a marriage, says new research that serves as a caution for couples as Valentine's Day approaches.

"Being married may 'up the ante,' because marriages tend to have higher levels of relationship commitment and joint investments [such as children, leisure, property and social networks]," said study co-author Anthony Paik, an assistant professor in the sociology department at the University of Iowa.

The study, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Sex Research, found that if jealousy wasn't a factor, three out of every four married people were highly satisfied with the emotional facets of their marriage. However, when the "green-eyed monster" entered the mix, levels of satisfaction dropped to less than half for married folk.

Jealousy didn't take quite the same toll on unmarried couples -- the study found that for these people, the odds of being very emotionally satisfied dropped only about 8 points when jealousy intervened.

For married individuals, "there is a well-defined 'psychological contract,' which includes extensive expectations and obligations," Paik said. "Breaches of those contracts elicit reactions and sanctioning behavior, the size of which depends on the amount of prior trust, commitment or investments."

Another expert agreed.

"Sexual infidelity or the suspicion of infidelity is a serious affront to any committed relationship," said Wendy M. Troxel, an assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, who studies relationship characteristics and health. "However, the stakes are even higher within the marital relationship, because the expectations concerning trust, loyalty and monogamy are often highest within married couples."

The study included 681 heterosexual men and women in marriages and in other committed relationships, those living together and those living apart, from the Chicago area. The researchers asked the couples if they had felt jealous in their relationships and whether or not they were happy physically and emotionally with their partner. The investigators found that when infidelity enters the picture, a couple's sex life can fizzle.

According to Kenneth N. Levy, assistant professor in the psychology department at Pennsylvania State University, the study was well-designed and helpful in that it breaks out the information based on a relationship's nature: married, dating and living together, and dating and living apart. He said the research also contradicts the "myth of make-up sex," because the study found that partners are less likely to want to be intimate when their partner has been sexual with another. And most critically, the study authors noted that jealousy can sometimes lead to domestic violence and even the death of a partner.

In Levy's own research on jealousy, he and his colleague applied "attachment" style. "We found that specifically those who are securely attached report being less concerned with sexual jealousy," he said.

With all the detrimental effects of jealousy, can it ever benefit a relationship? "At low levels, jealousy may promote the commitment within a relationship, because it may serve as a powerful reminder of just how valued one is within the relationship," said Troxel. "However, when jealousy intensifies or is chronic, it is likely to chip away at the relationship's security and stability."

In either of those cases, it's best to talk your feelings out together and, if necessary, to use counseling.

"Couples who can learn ways to communicate effectively about their feelings of jealousy and what it feels like to be on the receiving end of jealousy can actually make their relationship stronger," Troxel said.

More information

The American Psychological Association has more on the keys to a good marriage  .