- CREA recommends that patients who are going to receive oncology treatment should preserve their fertility before starting radiotherapy or chemotherapy 

“The effect of Oncology treatment on fertility might be devastating” This has been pointed out by Doctor Carmen Calatayud, CREA’s co-director. For this reason she has recommended that women who are going to undergo any oncology treatment should preserve their fertility before starting the chemotherapy or radiotherapy. “Preservation success will mainly depend on the speed of action”, although she points out that “each case must be studied individually, as ovarian stimulation might not be recommended to patients presenting metastasis”. 

Some of the consequences of oncology treatment might be amenorrhea (absence of menstrual period) together with a reduction in a woman’s ovarian reserves to a level as if she were 10 years older.

On World Cancer Day on 4th February, Dr. Carmen Calatayud considers that communication and synchronization between the oncologist and the assisted reproduction centre are very important. This is “to preserve fertility prior to oncology treatment, as the success of preservation will depend on the speed of action”. At the same time, she has called for oncologists to become aware of the importance of considering the use of equally effective treatments which affect fertility as little as possible.

Doctor Calatayud wants to inspire confidence and hope in those women who are suffering from cancer and who wish to be mothers. ”Thanks to progress in fertility preservation, a woman with cancer is not condemned to giving up the idea of becoming a mother in the future”. 

CREA, as a national leader in the field of assisted reproduction, was one of the first centres to stop using the traditional freezing methods in favour of vitrification. Vitrification maintains the embryos at low temperatures and avoids intracellular crystal formation, thus minimizing cell damage caused by cryopreservation. 

“Vitrification techniques make higher effectiveness possible due to better survival and implantation rates, thus leading to better pregnancy rates.” 

Another fertility preservation treatment for women is ovarian auto-transplantation. This consists of transplanting the ovary to an area that is not going to receive radiotherapy, thus avoiding affecting the ovarian reserve. In cases of ovarian tissue re-implantation, not only is fertility preserved but it is also possible to recover ovarian endocrine function. 

With regard to fertility preservation for men who are going to receive oncology treatment, previous cryopreservation of semen will be performed. The survival rate of each frozen sample will be assessed and, according to the results obtained, freezing as many samples as possible will be recommended before starting the treatment.

Dr. Calatayud concluded stating that “fertility preservation is for women and men who, for medical or other reasons, decide to store their genetic material in order to postpone their family planning” and that “thanks to progress in fertility preservation, cancer does not involve giving up the idea of having children”.