What is Fertility Preservation?
Fertility preservation focuses on helping patients, who are faced with receiving medical treatments that can cause infertility, preserve fertility through cryopreservation of embryos or eggs and tries to minimize the damages to the uterus and ovaries prior to the medical treatment.
Without Fertility Preservation
With Fertility Preservation
Diseases that Recommends Fertility
Malignant Tumor (Cancer)
As the survival rate has increased recently due to early diagnosis of cancer and the development of treatment methods, the quality of life after treatment has become equally important as the treatment of cancer. Young women are often single at the time of diagnosis or have not given birth before, so it is often desired to become pregnant after their cancer treatment. For cancer patients who wants to conceive at a later time, hormone therapy can be optionally performed to preserve fertility. In addition, cryopreservation of embryos or eggs are performed in preparation for the decreased ovarian function caused by chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
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Gynecologic Cancer :
Cryopreserve either the egg or embryo prior to chemotherapy and radiation therapy for cervical, ovarian, uterine cancer.
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Breast Cancer :
Embryo and/or egg cryopreservation following controlled ovarian stimulation is currently the fertility preservation method of choice.
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Hematologic Malignancies :
Cryopreserve either ovarian tissue prior to chemotherapy and radiation therapy for cancers that affect the blood and lymph nodes.
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Pediatric Cancer :
Since egg and sperm collection may not be possible before puberty, ovary and testicular tissue are collected through surgery and preserved.
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Colorectal Cancer :
Egg and embryo freezing, ovarian tissue freezing, ovarian transposition and ovarian suppression may be done prior to chemotherapy and radiation to preserve fertility.
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Male Cancers :
Chemotherapy and radiation therapy can affect the quality of the sperm which can lead to infertility. Therefore, sperm cryopreservation is recommended prior to medical treatments.
Benign Ovarian Tumor
If the tumor size is large or there is bilateral ovarian tumor, the function of the ovary is greatly reduced due to severe endometriosis or previous history of surgery. Therefore, through egg or embryo cryopreservation, chances of becoming pregnant will increase.
Methods of Fertility Preservation
Embryo Cryopreservation
Embryo cryopreservation requires a legally married husband’s sperm. Usually 2-4 weeks is necessary to complete a cycle. This time is needed to develop mature oocytes that are removed during the oocyte retrieval and then fertilized with sperm in the embryology lab to create embryos that are then frozen.
Oocyte (Egg) Cryopreservation
Oocyte cryopreservation is the process by which the eggs themselves are cryopreserved. Usually 2-4 weeks is necessary to complete depending on the menstrual cycle.
Ovarian Tissue Cryopreservation
The ovarian tissue is obtained by laparoscopy and then cortical strips are prepared from the ovarian tissue and cryopreserved. This process, however, is still considered experimental.
