| Summary: | Background: Ovarian tissue cryopreservation and transplantation are the only available fertility techniques for prepubertal girls with cancer. Though autotransplantation carries a risk of reintroducing malignant cells, it can be avoided by identifying minimal infiltrative disease (MID) within ovarian tissue. Methods: A broad search for peer-reviewed articles in the PubMed database was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines up to March 2023. Search terms included ‘minimal residual disease’, ‘cryopreservation’, ‘ovarian’, ‘cancer’ and synonyms. Results: Out of 542 identified records, 17 were included. Ovarian tissues of at least 115 girls were evaluated and categorized as: hematological malignancies (<i>n</i> = 56; 48.7%), solid tumors (<i>n</i> = 42; 36.5%) and tumors of the central nervous system (<i>n</i> = 17; 14.8%). In ovarian tissue of 25 patients (21.7%), MID was detected using RT-qPCR, FISH or multicolor flow cytometry: 16 of them (64%) being ALL (<i>IgH</i> rearrangements with/without <i>TRG</i>, <i>BCL-ABL1</i>, <i>EA2-PBX1</i>, <i>TEL-AML1</i> fusion transcripts), 3 (12%) Ewing sarcoma (<i>EWS-FLI1</i> fusion transcript, <i>EWSR1</i> rearrangements), 3 (12%) CML (<i>BCR-ABL1</i> fusion transcript, <i>FLT3</i>) and 3 (12%) AML (leukemia-associated immunophenotypes, <i>BCR-ABL1</i> fusion transcript) patients. Conclusion: While the majority of malignancies were found to have a low risk of containing malignant cells in ovarian tissue, further studies are needed to ensure safe implementation of future fertility restoration in clinical practice.
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