For people suffering from cancer, especially for those younger, having children could play a very important role in improving the quality of life. In these cases, the oncologists don't remind their patients of the high risks involved by cancer therapies for the fertility. Here we present some options and some answers for those suffering from cancer:
In 2 recent studies, answering to the question of fertility discussions between the treatments between the medical staff and the patients, the statistics show that only 57-60% of the patients recall of having a discussion on the effects of the cancer treatments over fertility even though all the subjects aged under 40.
What are the options for men?
One of the easiest ways to be able to conceive after the cancer treatment is sperm banking. Unfortunately, statistics show that not to many eligible men use this technique. Only 25% of men take advantage of sperm banking and from those, only 10% use their supply for conceiving.
What are the options for women?
There is no equivalent to sperm banking for women; however, one reliable option would be to go through an IVF cycle, supposing she is willing to accept the idea of a donor in there is no partner involved. This technique stimulates ovulation, than the egg is fertilized and the embryo obtained is frozen for a further use. This procedure is done before chemotherapy or pelvic radiation therapy. It is known that there is a high rate of success later pregnancies using those frozen embryos.
Another option would be freezing unfertilized mature eggs, technique that gained chances of success in the recent past and women with no actual partners prefer it. They can go through an IVF cycle, have multiple ripe eggs harvested and frozen in hope that some day a future partner will fertilize then to conceive. Another method, yet in an experimental stage, is to freeze ovarian tissue before treatment in the hope that later it can be transplanted back into the woman's own body, producing both hormones and mature eggs. So far, embryos war produced from such tissues but there was no birth reported.
For women with breast cancer, case in which the IVF can be dangerous because the estrogen released by IVF hormones treatment could reach any untreated breast cancer cell, a new medication was researched, Tamoxifen, which is hoping to block the estrogen from entering the cancer cells.
Yet, it is not known how many of the women actually get acknowledgement of these techniques of future fertilization when they start a cancer treatment. Also, not to many women know if the health insurance covers for ART.
What are the options for those who already had treatment for cancer?
In some cases, fertility treatments can help giving a chance for conceiving a child after cancer treatment; however, this doesn't work for everybody. For those other cases
The third party reproduction method could be an option.
In couples where the man has cancer, a sperm donor can be considered a valuable option. It is less expensive then infertility treatments and safe. Donors are carefully selected and evaluated for health, genetic history and STD by commercial sperm banks. A healthy young woman is very likely to achieve pregnancy in 3-6 months.
In case of woman, the procedure is more expensive because of the IVF treatment costs and then, unless the donor is not a family member or a friend, the volunteer donor is paid five thousands $ or more.
In none of the cases for man or woman, the insurance will not cover donation for eggs and sperm or in many cases for ART.
