Authors: Margo C Grady
Publish Date: 2006/06/09
Volume: 10, Issue: 1, Pages: 165-168
Abstract
While the diagnosis of cancer is not common in young men and women cancer survivors younger than 40 are likely to be very concerned about the impact of their cancer on future fertility their risk of cancer recurrence after treatment and risks to future offspring It is estimated that 1 in 900 persons between 16 and 44 are cancer survivors 1 and that there are at least 250000 women age 40 and younger who are breast cancer survivors in the United States As cancer survival increases the focus on quality of life issues increases When questioned at least 73 of young breast cancer survivors reported concerns about infertility due to cancer treatment and 29 reported that this concern impacted their choice of cancer treatment 2In women the options for preserving fertility and risk of ovarian failure depends on the age at the time the cancer is treated the type and location of cancer and the specific treatment chosen Some treatments such as bone marrow transplantation BMT are accompanied by very high rates 99 of ovarian failure 3 Even for those women who resume normal menstruation after chemotherapy premature ovarian failure POF is not uncommon 4 and the risk of premature ovarian failure is 8fold higher in cancer survivors 5 The risk of POF increases with the womans age with less than 20 of women under 30 years experiencing POF whereas most women older than 40 will become menopausal after chemotherapy 6POF and menopause are dependent on the type of therapy used Rates of ovarian failure range from 15 for acute myelocytic leukemia AML to 50 for breast cancer with the overall rate of ovarian failure of 34 4 The chemotherapy agents with the highest risk for ovarian failure were the alkylating agents The higher the dose of these drugs the higher the likelihood of ovarian failureOvarian tissue damage is well documented with the use of radiation therapy Radiotherapy is used for treatment of several cancer types affecting premenopausal women The degree of damage to ovarian tissue is related to a womans age the total dose of radiation used and the number of exposures In one study when the same total dose of radiation was delivered exposure to multiple fractionated doses versus a single dose resulted in less damage to the ovaries 4 When used in conjunction with chemotherapy the risk of POF increases Byrne et al assessed the risk of premature ovarian failure in childhood cancer survivors and found the relative risk of early menopause was 92 for those treated with chemotherapy alone and 27 for those treated with radiation plus chemotherapy 5
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