Figure 1.

LH treatment prevented follicular depletion, atresia, and stromal degeneration induced by chemotherapy. Alkylating agents were administered with or without LH and ovaries analyzed 30 days later. (A) Chemotherapy (ChT) treatment reduced the number of total follicles assessed in hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained sections, and LH co-administration blunted this effect. (B) All follicular subpopulations were higher in the LH-cotreated group than in the ChT group. (C) Percentages of morphologically abnormal follicles were similar in the LH and control group, but the ChT group showed a significant increase in atretic follicles. (D) Stromal degeneration index (fibrotic non-cellular or tissue absent area/total tissue area of each sample, normalized to control group index), and representative images at 2.5× (top, scale bar = 800 µm) and 10× (bottom, scale bar = 200 µm) magnification showing that LH preserves stromal morphology. Disrupted regions were identified as fibrotic areas and are indicated with black arrows in 10× images. Scatter plots show individual data and means for all groups (n = 3 in control and n = 5 in ChT and chemotherapy with LH (ChT+LH-1×) groups). Statistical significance was determined by two-tailed Mann–Whitney U test; *P-values <0.05 were considered statistically significant.