Cancer survival rates have increased vastly in the past twenty years. The increased cancer survival rates has led to an increased emphasis on quality of life issues. At the same time, advances in reproductive technologies are occurring all the time, providing options that simply did not exist for patients, even a few years ago. Patients can benefit now more than ever from information about fertility risks and options
Fertility Preservation is a field in medicine developed with the purpose of helping women, men and children overcome the complications of infertility associated with cancer treatments.
In addition, patients with non-cancerous conditions (such as ovarian cysts, family history of early menopause, lupus, and Turner’s Syndrome, Galactosemia) can benefit from Fertility Preservation treatments.
Established and experimental procedures include: egg and embryo freezing, ovarian stimulation techniques for breast and endometrial cancer patients, ovarian tissue harvesting, freezing and transplantation, laparoscopic ovarian transposition, and testicular freezing.
EGG FREEZING: has come a long way. Research shows that current success rates have approached to that of standard IVF procedures. When fertility is under threat in single women and adolescents, this is a useful strategy to preserve fertility.
BREAST CANCER AND IVF: Eggs are harvested for safekeeping in advance of cancer treatments, and reimplanted in an IVF procedure when the patient’s cancer is in remission.
SPERM FREEZING TESTICULAR TISSUE FREEZING: While mature men can preserve fertility by sperm freezing, the only option in male children is testicular tissue freezing. This is an experimental option for children undergoing chemotherapy.
FERTILITY PRESERVATION IN CHILDREN: Chemotherapy treatments and other conditions such as Turner’s and galactosemia can threaten the future fertility of children.
Click here for more information: http://www.fertilehope.org/
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