Robert RogersOvarian cancer treatments can negatively affect a woman’s fertility. People with cancer need to opt for fertility preservation methods, which involve saving eggs or productive tissue so that childbirth is possible in the future. These procedures can be done at centers such as Fertility Treatment Center Scottsdale and Egg Preservation Fertility Arizona.
Ovarian cancer can affect older women as much as young women. After an ovarian cancer diagnosis, young women who desire to have children become perturbed about their fertility. Both cancer and its treatments can affect a woman’s ability to conceive. You should consider ways to preserve your fertility before cancer treatment or surgery begins.
How Does Cancer Treatment Affect Fertility In Women?
Ovarian cancer treatment may involve the surgical removal of some of the reproductive organs. Survivors of such organ removal surgery might have to adopt or choose surrogacy with a donor egg in order to have kids. However, if the cancer is diagnosed early enough when only one ovary is affected, the normal ovary and uterus can be preserved. It’s quite tricky to preserve your fertility when with ovarian cancer, and you have to see a reproductive endocrinologist and an oncologist.
All cancer treatments can negatively affect your fertility. Some chemotherapy drugs can cause an acute ovarian failure, which leads to fewer follicles. Chemotherapy can harm healthy cells in your reproductive system and also put you at risk for premature menopause. Surgery treatment depends on the cancer stage. The surgery may be a salpingo-oophorectomy which involves removing the ovary or ovaries and fallopian tube(s). It’s evident that the removal of your ovaries can ruin your chances of having kids in the future.
Options For Fertility Preservation
Fertility preservation is done during certain phases of the menstrual cycle. You have to consult with centers like the Egg Preservation Fertility Arizona in order to have it done correctly. You should ask questions about the chances of success of the fertility options but also remember that there is no 100% guarantee. Let’s look at the possible ways to preserve your fertility.
Embryo Cryopreservation
Embryo cryopreservation (embryo freezing) is a way to preserve fertility in females who have cancer. They take the mature eggs and put them in a sterile lab dish with sperm gotten from her partner. One of the sperm has to fertilize the egg, and the process is known as In vitro fertilization (IVF). Once the egg gets fertilized, the embryo will be frozen. Then, after the cancer treatment, the embryo can be thawed and put back in the woman’s uterus if she wants a baby.
Although some of the embryos may not survive to thaw or may not implant into the uterus correctly, embryo freezing is worth a try. The process of collecting eggs for embryo cryopreservation takes several weeks, and it depends on where the female is in her menstrual cycle because the eggs have to be fertile. The doctor may inject hormone medications into the female in order to stimulate her ovaries to produce eggs.
Egg Cryopreservation (freezing)
The mature eggs which will be frozen are larger and much more delicate than embryos. That’s why embryo cryopreservation has more chances of success. You do not have to have a male partner or sperm donor before freezing your eggs. For egg freezing, the time of your menstrual cycle is not essential. A catheter will be put through the upper part of the vagina and into the ovary to harvest the eggs. The options of having children are open when you preserve unfertilized eggs.
When you are ready to become pregnant, they will thaw the eggs and fertilize with your partner’s sperm before implanting into your uterus to make a baby. However, you do not need to have a partner when freezing the eggs. Your eggs will remain frozen till you have a man and decide to get pregnant. The fertility preservation techniques such as egg freezing or embryo cryopreservation are quite expensive, but you should opt for the best places such as Egg Preservation Fertility Arizona.
Ovarian Transposition
Ovarian transposition is the procedure in which the ovaries get moved away from the target zone of radiation therapy. If pelvic radiation is required, then ovarian transposition has to be done in order to remove the ovaries from the specific path for radiation. This is particularly necessary for girls or young females and can be performed before or after puberty.
It can be an outpatient surgery that doesn’t require staying in the hospital. The surgeons will move the ovaries to another position, but after the radiation therapy, the ovaries tend to fall into their normal place over time. This procedure is not always successful. The ovaries may not be protected due to radiation scatter and may still be affected after all.
Conclusion
It’s important to note that if a female is fertile before treatment, her body can recover naturally after the therapy. She may notice the restoration of her hormonal cycle and will be able to produce mature eggs that can be fertilized and result in pregnancy. Doctors recommend that you should wait from 6 months to about 2 years before trying to get pregnant. This will help reduce the risk of birth defects from eggs that were damaged by chemotherapy. The length of waiting time depends on the type of treatment used and how long it will take for you to recover fully. Women who had chemotherapy or pelvic radiation can experience early menopause after seeing their menstrual period for some time. They have a high tendency to start menopause 5 to 20 years earlier than anticipated. Cancer patients should consult with their doctors about fertility preservation and if they will be able to conceive naturally. Talking to a doctor will help highlight the threats that several cancer treatments pose to a woman’s fertility and how to ensure that pregnancy is possible in the future.
