Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2025: Fertility Preservation At Medfem Fertility Clinic

Breast cancer touches the lives of women and their families around the world differently, in some cases even affecting their ability to have a child.
 

The Global Challenge

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women worldwide. Each year, millions of women are diagnosed, of which hundreds of thousands will die from the disease. While the 5-year survival rates in high-income countries exceeds 90%, the figures drop to 66% in India and 40% in South Africa.
 

Critical Importance Of Early Detection

Awareness campaigns often emphasise the critical importance of early detection, which enables more effective treatment and positive prognoses, reducing suffering and significantly decreasing mortality rates.

When detected in early stages, approximately 90% of breast cancer patients survive for many years following diagnosis.

Regular mammograms and regular breast self-examination are the keys to early detection.
 

Who Faces Breast Cancer Risk?

Every woman faces some risk of breast cancer, particularly those with a family history of the disease. While the risk increases as women age, many women younger than 40 also receive breast cancer diagnoses.

Receiving a cancer diagnosis is devastating and completely upends a person’s world. To win the breast cancer battle only to discover you cannot carry a child or conceive opens the door to an entirely new and difficult challenge. Fortunately, options exist for those facing breast cancer to prevent this.
 

Infertility And Breast Cancer

Receiving a breast cancer diagnosis does not guarantee you will become infertile. How much breast cancer impacts fertility depends upon various factors including the cancer’s progression, the type of breast cancer, the type of cancer treatment prescribed, and whether early menopause will occur.

Fertility potential can be harmed by cancer treatment. A number of different factors determine how fertility will be affected by cancer treatment. Age and cancer type play a large role – some cancers may be hormone-sensitive and are more aggressive than others.

How much damage the reproductive organs and ovaries will sustain will be determined by the treatment prescribed, whether surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. The dose, duration, type, scope and location used for these methods will also affect whether treatment will impact fertility.

With all of these factors taken into account, predicting whether a woman’s reproductive organs or eggs will maintain function following cancer treatment can be very difficult. A discussion with your reproductive specialist and your oncologist can better estimate your fertility potential following cancer treatment. With both teams working for you, the probability of future success increases.

It is also important to know that cancer is not linked with fertility drugs. A woman’s hormone levels can increase with pregnancy and infertility drugs. If a hormone-sensitive tumour exists in the breast, there is a possibility that growth of breast cancer will accelerate. But while certain types of breast cancer can be accelerated by increases in hormones, studies have confirmed no link exists between fertility treatments and breast cancer risk.
 

Minimising Breast Cancer’s Impact On Fertility

Various techniques exist to minimise damage to reproductive potential. For instance, ovaries can be protected during radiation with ovarian shielding, while the ovaries can be temporarily shut down with ovarian suppression methods. Following treatment, some women may retain fertility potential.

For other women, menopause may arrive immediately after treatment, or earlier in life. For these women, understanding their future options for family building is crucial.
 

Preserving Fertility Is Possible

If having a family after breast cancer treatment is in your plans, several different options exist to protect or preserve your fertility. These options include embryo freezing, egg freezing and even freezing of ovarian tissue.
 

Freezing Eggs

The goal involves freezing approximately 10 to 15 eggs prior to cancer treatment commencing, to optimise success chances later when the eggs can be fertilised in a lab and the resulting embryos can be implanted these back into the patient’s uterus, to hopefully result in a pregnancy.

Typically, egg freezing is a process that takes one to two months to complete. For cancer patients, however, the evaluation and treatment are done together to rapidly freeze eggs before immediately moving forward to cancer treatment.

Patients initially complete ultrasounds and blood tests to determine candidacy for egg freezing. Next, for two weeks medicines are taken to prepare the eggs prior to an egg retrieval procedure.

During medicine intake, the growth of eggs is monitored using ultrasound and blood tests to determine when they will be ready. During the egg retrieval process, patients are under light sedation, and may experience a bit of bloating and cramping afterwards.

Patients with breast cancer that has progressed or hormone-sensitive breast cancer may not qualify for this fertility preservation form.
 

Freezing Embryos

For patients who already have a partner, freezing fertilised eggs, or embryos, is the best option for future success.

The little eggs are fragile and extremely delicate and not every frozen egg will survive thawing. To improve successful pregnancy chances later, the patient undergoes an egg retrieval as previously described, but following the egg retrieval, the eggs are fertilised using the partner’s sperm.

The resulting embryos are frozen and can then be used for future fertility treatment. If future baby carrying is not possible, a surrogate or gestational carrier is also an option.
 

Freezing Ovarian Tissue

While freezing of ovarian tissue is still experimental and not widely available, it represents an option for those seeking to preserve fertility when facing cancer treatment.

Patients undergo surgery where all or part of an ovary is removed. The ovarian tissue containing hormone-producing cells and immature eggs is cryopreserved. Once a patient becomes cancer-free, the frozen ovarian tissue is thawed and then transplanted back to the patient’s uterus. Even if this occurs years later, the frozen ovarian tissue remains the same age as when cryopreservation occurred.
 

Contacting Someone For Fertility Preservation

Medfem Fertility Clinic’s team is a committed and understanding team of medical professionals, possessing the experience, desire and knowledge to provide you with the best fertility preservation advice and the highest chance of a successful outcome at the end of your future fertility treatment.

Medfem Fertility Clinic’s team has helped thousands of people preserve their fertility while facing cancer treatment, providing them a chance to still experience having their own babies after successful completion of cancer treatment.

If meeting one of our fertility specialists interests you, simply click here to book a consultation or contact us by telephone on +27 (11) 463 2244.

Our Fertility Specialists can also meet you during a virtual consultation via Skype or Zoom. Click here to book a virtual consultation now.

We look forward to meeting you at Medfem Fertility Clinic!