Childhood cancer survivors can solve their fertility problems with new technique

Childhood cancer survivors can solve their fertility problems

Childhood cancer patients are sometimes rendered infertile by the treatments they receive to get rid of the disease. Many of their sperm cells die during the process and they tend to have difficulty having children.

If they are advised promptly, young men can store their sperm through a sperm bank, although most are not told of the option. But for those with childhood cancer, that is, those diagnosed before puberty, no established options are available. For most of them who want to become fathers, adoption or sperm donation are the only viable options after surviving cancer.

But a new study published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology showed that a technique first devised ten years ago has been proven to be effective in the ten years of follow-up to solve some fertility problems for these group of patients.

The novel procedure involves the extraction through biopsies of sperm hidden in testicular tissue. The sperm is then used for in vitro fertilization to induce a pregnancy. A third of the men with childhood cancer who participated in the study were successful in their attempts to have children through IVF. Early results are promising but the researchers warn that the technique will not work all the time.

"Chances of successful treatment before were thought to be zero. So yes, we're better than zero but certainly it's not absolute that if you go in for treatment, that you're going to be successful," said Dr. Peter Schlegel, chairman of urology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Sperm retrieval was most successful among testicular cancer patients while those with sarcoma had the highest failure rates. Results are also uneven because of the different kinds of treatment for childhood cancer.

Posted by George Daniels on Tuesday March 15 2011, 5:44 AM EDT. Ref: AP. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0