Fertility preservation before cancer treatment. Discover oncofertility options

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, our Los Angeles fertility center is discussing oncofertility options for breast cancer patients. Joshua J. Berger MD, PhD works hard to ensure you have options for family building after cancer treatment. By offering fertility preservation before cancer treatment, our team can help you protect your ability to have children.

Understanding the impact of cancer treatment on fertility

When you receive a breast cancer diagnosis, you quickly start thinking about treatment. Chemotherapy, radiation and other therapies are lifesaving, but they can also negatively affect fertility.

Treatment can affect the quality and quantity of your eggs. Depending on the length of treatment, the damage can be temporary or permanent. However, fertility preservation before cancer treatment provides hope.

Oncofertility allows patients to preserve their fertility for the future

You can talk with your oncologist and the team at our Los Angeles fertility center about fertility preservation before cancer treatment. Our team can partner with your doctor to review the type of cancer you have, your treatment plan and the amount of time you have before treatment begins so that he can determine the best approach.

• Egg freezing. Thanks to advances in reproductive medicine, we can safely freeze and thaw eggs. A flash-freezing technique called vitrification is an oncofertility option that can allow you to preserve your eggs for use after treatment.
• Embryo freezing. For couples who want to conceive in the future, your doctor may suggest embryo freezing. This involves taking medications for ovarian stimulation, undergoing egg retrieval and combining the eggs and sperm in the IVF laboratory. Our team then freezes the resulting healthy embryos until you and your partner want to conceive.

Additionally, depending on the treatment areas and the type of treatment, your doctors may be able to use carefully placed shields to limit radiation exposure to your reproductive organs.

Even after a cancer diagnosis, you can still have a healthy baby. If you want to have options for building your family after breast cancer, call our Los Angeles fertility center and schedule an appointment. He can answer your questions, explain oncofertility and review your fertility preservation options.