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More hope of children for women with cancer
Sophie Goodchild, Health Editor7 Jul 2008
A breakthrough technique could double the chance of motherhood for women with cancer.
Scientists have carried out a world first by obtaining eggs from patients much later than was ever thought possible. This could bring new hope to thousands of women having chemotherapy who want to preserve their fertility so they can eventually have children.
Until now doctors have only had one opportunity - on the very first day of a woman's menstrual cycle - to begin stimulating the ovaries to produce eggs which can then be frozen.
But this fertility breakthrough means that doctors now have double the chance of carrying out this procedure. Women also do not have to chose between delaying vital cancer treatment or the possibility of becoming a mother.
Cancer drugs can seriously damage the ovaries so women must have their eggs harvested and then stored safely for future use before radiation or chemotherapy treatment starts.
The singer Kylie Minogue is understood to have had her own eggs harvested and then frozen before she underwent treatment for breast cancer. This gives women the chance of using these eggs so they can become pregnant once they have been given the all-clear by doctors.
But this is not much good for patients needing urgent cancer treatment who are past the first day of their period.
They are faced with delaying their chemotherapy for a total of six weeks - four weeks until their next period and then for another two weeks to give doctors time to stimulate their ovaries and then harvest eggs. Experiments carried out by German researchers have shown that it is possible to carry out this process of ovary stimulation in the final stage of a women's monthly cycle.
Their findings are based on a trial involving 40 women - with half undergoing late ovary stimulation.
Doctors were able to harvest mature eggs in an average of two weeks in nearly three quarters of these patients. They were presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Barcelona. Dr Michael von Wolff, who headed up this research, said it was a significant step forward for enabling women with cancer to undergo treatment and also preserve their fertility.
The fertility expert said: "Two weeks is an acceptable amount of time in many diseases to wait before starting a cancer treatment such as chemotherapy. But three to six weeks is far too long."
He called for a network of special centres to be set up to carry out these ovary stimulation techniques.
