Important Fertility Considerations For Patients Getting Chemotherapy

• Chemotherapy/ radiotherapy always adversely affects reproductive function
• At least 3% of patients with breast cancer are peak reproductive age (25-35 years)
• We can preserve fertility for future; this is for females (egg freezing and other techniques) and males (sperm freezing)
• Although chemotherapy may not always result in premature menopause, it always has some affect on fertility, namely loss of ovarian follicles to some degree. It often causes ‘pre-menopause’ which can be reproductively devastating as well. FSH level alone is not a good indicator of ovarian problems or premenopause.
• Chemotherapy adds at least 10 years to ‘real age’ or ‘ovarian age’ in terms of reproductive function. A 30 year old now behaves reproductively like someone that is 40 years old.
• With women that have breast cancer and carry the BRCA gene, we can detect this gene in embryos using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) techniques through IVF, reducing if not eliminating the risk of transmission of the gene to offspring.
• Ovarian dysfunction post-chemotherapy is related to patient age at the time, type of chemotherapy/radiotherapy, and ovarian function at start of therapy (this can be assessed rapidly - generally in one day - with simple tests prior to therapy)

Please contact us at SIRM-St. Louis at 314-983-9000 if you are preparing to undergo cancer chemotherapy or radiotherapy. We will expedite a consultation and provide you with information and options for fertility preservation. You can email me directly at: pahlering@sherinstitute.com