FERTILITY TREATMENT FOR
PATIENTS LIVING WITH CANCER
Facing a cancer diagnosis can be incredibly challenging; even more, challenging would be to clear this hurdle only to find you are unable to start or grow your family as a result of cancer treatment. Fertility treatment for patients diagnosed with cancer is actually very similar to other treatment used for other infertility diagnoses.
Shady Grove Fertility offers the chance for people in the UK who are facing cancer —or those who have already overcome cancer—and its subsequent infertility to become parents.
DOES CANCER CAUSE INFERTILITY?
While many cancer diagnoses will have no impact on fertility, It is most often the cancer treatment that can wreak havoc on your body.
Many cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation are designed to knock out cancer but also can kill or damage healthy gametes (sperm or egg cells), often leaving you infertile.
Here at Shady Grove Fertility we encourage patients living with cancer to explore and understand their family building options during this emotional time before making decisions. One option to consider is donor sperm and/or donor egg treatment.
FERTILITY TREATMENT FOR WOMEN WITH CANCER
If you are in a position to take preservation measures prior to beginning cancer therapy, egg freezing is a proven option to help protect your fertility. LEARN MORE ABOUT EGG FREEZING.
If you did not freeze your eggs prior to cancer treatment—perhaps the timeline to effectively treat the cancer was very rapid or you were not presented with fertility preservation options at the time—there are still treatments available to help you conceive. A full infertility work-up can help determine if conception with your own eggs is possible. In the cases where conception with your own eggs is not an option, donor egg treatment is a progressive and very effective treatment.
With donor egg treatment, while you may need to use a donated egg from another woman, in many cases, you can still enjoy carrying the pregnancy and bond with your child from day one.
We have a large registry of egg donors who have already completed comprehensive background checks. After an initial consult with an SGF fertility specialist, you can choose which egg donor treatment program suits you financially and start the journey of becoming a parent.
CONTACT US TO LEARN MORE ABOUT DONOR EGG TREATMENT.
FERTILITY TREATMENT FOR MEN WITH CANCER
Fortunately, fertility preservation for men with cancer is more commonly recommended. If you have been recently diagnosed with cancer, please speak with your oncologist about steps to preserve your fertility.
However, even as pervasive as male fertility preservation may be, there are several scenarios where fertility preservation was not considered or an option—perhaps a rapid treatment timeline or the diagnosis occurred at a very young age. In these scenarios, a semen analysis should be performed to verify the sperm quality. The semen analysis will assess the sperm volume as well as motility and morphology among other indicators.
For men who have overcome cancer only to later receive an infertility diagnosis, donor sperm is available to help you and your partner conceive. Donor sperm is a common treatment at Shady Grove Fertility; we estimate about a quarter of all our treatments use donor sperm to aid conception.