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Drug ‘Freezes’ Fertility of Breast Cancer Patients, Keeps Hopes of Having Baby After Chemo

Women diagnosed with breast cancer who undergo treatment may lose their ability to have a child in the future as chemotherapy can damage the ovaries and cause sterility. A drug that can temporarily freeze fertility, however, brings hope to breast cancer patients who are still eager to have a child after their treatment.

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Scientists Move a Step Closer to Preserving Fertility in Young Boys With Cancer

Scientists have moved a step closer to being able to preserve fertility in young boys who undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer. The new research, published in Fertility and Sterility, the journal of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, addresses the safety of an option scientists are developing for boys who aren’t sexually mature and cannot bank sperm.

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Oncofertility Offers New Options For Young Women With Cancer Who Want To Have Kids

The most common and successful option for a woman with cancer is freezing an egg or embryo before undergoing chemotherapy or radiation. Once the patient decides she is ready to get pregnant, she is given estrogen and progesterone to prepare the lining of the uterus. The embryo is then thawed (or the egg is inseminated) and transferred into the uterus. Success rates specifically for cancer patients have not yet been studied. But in vitro fertilization (IVF) rates are around 50 percent for women younger than 35.

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New Nanoparticle Chemo Is Gentler On Fertility

RestingEggFolliclesUsing nanoparticles as “Trojan horses”, scientists have designed and lab-tested a way to deliver an arsenic-based chemo drug that ferociously attacks cancer, but is gentler on the ovaries. They hope the new method will help to protect the fertility of women undergoing cancer treatment.

The team also developed a rapid way to test existing and new chemo drugs for their effect on ovarian function, so doctors and their female patients can make treatment decisions that minimize damage to ovaries and thus increase the chance of having a future family.

The new nanoparticle chemo drug they designed is the first cancer drug to be tested while in development for its effect on fertility using the new rapid toxicity test.

Advances in cancer therapy means more patients are surviving, but many female patients often face a temporary or permanent loss of fertility after undergoing traditional chemotherapy. Read full article.