Oman wellness: Cancer and infertility

Cancer is a word that evokes fear and dread among many and is often viewed as a death sentence. But medical advances have come a long way and today scientific breakthroughs and research have been a blessing for effective treatment of various kinds of cancer as well as ensuring a good quality of life with and after cancer. In particular, this has been seen in the case of infertility. Medicine techniques and procedures that have provided couples with hope and the ability to become parents despite a cancer diagnosis.
The freezing of male reproductive cells (sperm) has given young men battling cancer and other terminal illnesses the relief notion that they can still father a child. Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy treatments are toxic to reproductive cells (sperms and eggs) and what infertility specialists today can successfully do is harvest sperm and eggs, freeze them and use them at a later stage once the individual has finished cancer treatment and been pronounced cancer-free. Whilst sperm freezing has been known and available for many years, the same has not been so for egg freezing.
Until five years ago, egg freezing was not very advanced and as a result the eggs that were frozen were of poor quality once thawed and often did not result in pregnancies. Today, however egg freezing is done by a process called Vitrification. This literally means “turning into glass” whereby the eggs are plunged into liquid nitrogen, which rapidly freezes them thereby preventing the formation of ice crystals and preserving their quality. These eggs are then used for IVF or ICSI procedures later.
Another revolutionary technique has been the ability to freeze and preserve ovarian tissue prior to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. During cancer treatment the ovarian tissue is destroyed but with this technique, once the egg giver has been deemed cancer-free and is ready to conceive, the frozen ovarian tissue is replanted into the pelvis and this has been effective in generating eggs that have gone on to becoming successful pregnancies.
The greatest pro of these techniques is that reproductive cells can be stored for indefinite periods of time.
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Dr Pankaj Shrivastav (MD.DGO.FRCOG) is Director of Conceive Gynaecology & Fertility Hospital, Sharjah