The Desire to Have Children After Cancer Treatment

When women of childbearing age receive a cancer diagnosis and still want to have children, they are often very concerned because treatment for cancer can jeopardize their fertility.

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Stefan Jirecek

Medical fields
Gynecology and obstetrics

Professor Jirecek, why is that?

The drugs used in chemotherapy (cytostatics) affect cell division to varying degrees. Not only are cancer cells destroyed, but intact cells - as well as female eggs - are also attacked, which can have a damaging effect on fertility. Radiation therapy can also have a negative impact on fertility.

The impairment of fertility depends on the type of therapy, the dose of medication, the duration of therapy and the age of the patient. The older a woman is, the more likely she is to lose her fertility due to chemotherapy. After completing chemotherapy, the supply of eggs may be too low for pregnancy to occur naturally.

What can women do to still get pregnant after cancer treatment?

To ensure that the woman has enough healthy and mature eggs available for pregnancy after successful completion of cancer treatment, eggs can be retrieved and frozen before chemotherapy or radiation therapy. This “cryopreservation” allows the eggs to be stored under strict safety precautions and provides an opportunity to use the eggs at a later date for fertility treatment.

Of course, in addition to eggs, embryos can also be frozen. This means that if a patient is married or in a long-term relationship, it would make sense to fertilize the eggs with the husband's/partner's sperm before cryopreservation and freeze them as embryos a few days later. Embryos are significantly more stable than fragile eggs, so the rate of loss through the freezing or thawing process is lower.

How is this freezing done?

Freezing and thawing are critical processes that are of great importance for the life of the embryos. At the Döbling Fertility Center, cryopreservation is carried out using vitrification, the most successful method currently used. It enables us to achieve the same pregnancy rates as with a ´”fresh cycle” with eggs that were not frozen. Freezing eggs is permitted in Austria only under certain conditions. These include diseases or medical treatments that can severely impair female fertility (cancer diseases with subsequent chemotherapy/radiation therapy, endometriosis, etc.).

The so-called “social egg freezing” (= cryopreservation of eggs at a younger age as a reserve for the future) is not permitted by Austrian law. Freezing of sperm cells is possible without restrictions in Austria and is often used before therapies that may impair men's fertility (e.g. cancer with subsequent chemotherapy/radiation therapy, hormone therapies, etc.) who wish to start a family after therapy has been completed.

What should be done after completing cancer treatment to achieve pregnancy? What methods are available?

Here, too, the type of cancer therapy is crucial to whether fertility treatment is successful. However, if the sperm quality is good, all levels of fertility therapy are possible in most cases.

What advantages does the Döbling Fertility Center offer to patients?

In the Fertility Center at the Döbling Private Hospital, all modern treatment methods are available to our patients. Couples receive personal, consistent care from one specialist. Our specialists have decades of experience and guide patients through the whole process with a lot of empathy.

The treatments in our institute take place in a pleasant, discreet atmosphere - and in the safe setting of the Döbling Private Hospital.