Balancing Fertility And Cancer Treatments

Balancing fertility and cancer treatments: Fertility preservation. .. useful options to consider if…you are considering cancer treatments that will be toxic and will destroy the eggs, ovaries (in girls/women) and sperm, testes (in boys/men) like chemotherapy and/ or radiotherapy. To ensure future fertility such patients can have eggs, sperms and/or parts of or the whole ovary or testicular tissue frozen and preserved for future fertility use. Harvested eggs following IVF ovarian stimulation before chemo-radiotherapy (in men/boys – sperm or testis) can also be frozen or cryopreserved for storage; these can be used in future after successful cancer treatments. Sperm samples or testicular tissues can be collected and cryopreserved similarly. Sperm are collected usually without hormonal stimulation. Cryostorage or freezing testicular or ovarian tissues before cancer treatments are available for non-testicular or non-ovarian tissue cancers only. Gonadal cancer tumors from the ovaries or testis are radically excised completely, followed by radiotherapies or chemotherapies; depending on the stage of the tumour. In these cases, for fertility, such patients are advised to use donor services for eggs or sperm with or without female gestational hosts. Other notable use for eggs, embryo and ovarian cryostorage or freezing for future use includes: egg or embryo preservation for career minded women who choose to delay child-bearing (so called voluntary infertility) so that they can pursue their careers or while waiting for “Mr Right”. These treatment options (like most fertility treatments) are expensive and comes with no guarantees. Useful counseling sessions are usually advised and made compulsory before and after having fertility preservation treatment options. 

By Dr Lateef Akinola MSC, PHD, MBA, MRCOG