Fertility preservation: options for cancer patients

While receiving cancer treatment can be life-saving, it can also have adverse side effects on your health. Some cancer treatments may affect your fertility, for example, which can make it difficult to have children afterwards without support from fertility treatments.

However, there are many fertility preservation methods available for men and women to use during this challenging chapter of their lives.

In this blog post, we explain how cancer treatments affect your fertility and explore the various options you can use to preserve it for use in the future.

How does cancer treatment affect my fertility?

Before your cancer treatment begins, your dedicated oncology team will discuss the possible side effects involved, including changes to your fertility. These changes may be temporary or permanent, depending on the treatment you need and the dosage of the medicine you receive.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy can stop women’s ovaries from working and potentially cause early menopause. Some chemotherapy drugs can harm the eggs in your ovaries, so preserving them before treatment can be essential. Not all chemotherapy will stop your ovaries from working permanently, but it can take several years for your periods to recover.

In men, chemotherapy can limit sperm production, decrease sperm quality and lower testosterone production. Higher chemotherapy doses are more likely to cause permanent infertility.

Some chemotherapy drugs can affect the nerves in your genitals, impacting men’s ability to get and maintain an erection. This side effect usually improves once you have completed treatment, but it can make having sex difficult, which then makes it challenging for your partner to conceive.

Surgery

For some cancers like ovarian, cervical and uterine cancer, for instance, it’s sometimes necessary to remove part or all of the reproductive system during surgery. However, in doing so, you could end up becoming infertile.

Testicular cancer in men may also need treatment with surgery, which can lead to fertility challenges.

What fertility preservation options are available for men with cancer?

While receiving cancer treatments may affect your fertility, there are many options available to both men and women to help you start or expand a family. Let’s start by looking at the options available to men.

Sperm freezing

For men about to undergo cancer treatment, the main fertility preservation option is sperm freezing. This involves ejaculating into a sample cup, with the sperm being carefully frozen and stored for use in future fertility treatments, such as in vitro fertilisation(IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

Surgical sperm recovery

If you cannot provide a semen sample, surgical sperm recovery may be possible. It may also be possible to perform it at the same time as surgical cancer treatment. Speak with your doctor if you’d like sperm retrieval simultaneously with cancer surgery. They can confirm whether this is an option for you.

Urinary sperm retrieval

Some men have retrograde ejaculation, which means sperm and semen move into your bladder when you orgasm. If this is the case, we may be able to collect the sperm in your urine. You’ll first be given a special drink that stops your urine from harming your sperm. Then, it’ll be collected from your urine sample and frozen for future fertility treatments.

Read one of our previous patients’ success stories on starting their family after testicular cancer.

What fertility preservation options are available for women with cancer?

Various aspects of a woman’s fertility may be affected by cancer treatment. Some women may choose to freeze their eggs before treatment, while others may decide to preserve tissue from their ovaries to be replaced inside the body once treatment has finished.

Your doctor will discuss your fertility preservation options with you before your cancer treatment begins, so you can feel confident about what your fertility journey will look like afterwards.

Egg freezing

Cancer treatments can stop your ovaries from working and harm the quality of your eggs. Collecting and freezing them can make them available for use in fertility treatment once you’re better.

Before collecting your eggs for freezing, we may administer injections or medications that stimulate your ovaries and encourage them to produce more mature eggs than usual. This procedure allows us to collect as many eggs as is safely possible and gives you more opportunities to become pregnant through fertility treatment.

Your fertility specialist will confirm if you can have ovarian stimulating medications and explain the possible associated risks.

Learn more about our egg freezing process.

Embryo freezing

After we have collected your eggs, we can fertilise them in the laboratory before storing them in a freezer. This will provide you with frozen embryos to use in future fertility treatments. Frozen embryo transfer (FET) is one potential fertility treatment option you could use, which involves thawing the embryo and placing it directly into your womb.

Ovarian cryopreservation

In some cases, your ovarian tissue can be collected and frozen before your cancer treatment. This tissue can contain thousands of immature eggs and can be returned to your body through surgery, making it possible for you to become pregnant.

However, ovarian cryopreservation might not suit you if you have cancer cells in your ovaries or a haematological cancer (like leukaemia or lymphoma). This fertility preservation method is usually reserved for younger patients and is also only available in limited fertility clinics. You’ll most likely need additional support in the form of fertility treatments to become pregnant. Unfortunately, this is not a service we currently offer at BCRM.

Discuss your fertility preservation options with the Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine

Protecting your fertility might be a part of your plan if you’re having cancer treatment. At BCRM, we offer several fertility preservation options to help you start your fertility journey once you’ve finished your cancer treatment.

Contact our team today, and we’ll happily discuss your fertility preservation options during a thorough consultation.