An article in the New York Times says that there is more hope for fertility for childhood cancer survivors even if they did not take advantage of fertility preservation methods which were not available when they underwent radiation or chemotherapy.
At one time, oncologists rarely worried about the reproductive side effects of treatment because so few pediatric patients survived. But as more children with cancer live into adulthood — death rates have plunged 66 percent since the 1970s — the landscape of fertility has changed. Doctors are offering patients preservation options at the time of diagnosis, and researchers are finding that for many survivors, the odds of overcoming clinical infertility are surprisingly good.
Last month, a large study in The Lancet Oncology found that about two thirds of female survivors who sought out fertility treatments as adults ultimately became pregnant — a rate of success that mirrored the rate among other infertile women. Other recent studies have found that many men who experience low sperm counts after pediatric cancer, a side effect in two thirds of boys who receive chemotherapy, can undergo procedures that harvest viable sperm, allowing them to father their own children. Doctors say that while there is no doubt that childhood cancer increases the likelihood of infertility, the ovaries and testes of young cancer patients may be more resilient than they had previously thought.
Of course today there are fertility preservation methods like cryopreserving sperm and egg freezing except for the youngest cancer patients. But it is good to know that in the youngest needing radiation or chemotherapy that the gonads may be more resilient than previously thought.