How Cancer Treatment Can Affect Fertility
- A North Carolina couple welcomed their daughter into the world on a once-in-a-lifetime date after the mother's Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis made pregnancy unlikely for her.
- The treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma is typically chemotherapy, and some types of chemotherapy can destroy eggs in a woman's ovaries. This can make it impossible or difficult to get pregnant later on.
- Whether or not chemotherapy makes you infertile depends on the type of drug and the woman's age, since egg supply decreases with age.
- If you are having a treatment that includes infertility as a possible side effect, your doctor will not be able to tell you for sure whether you will have this side effect. That is why you should discuss your options for fertility preservation before starting treatment.
According to Alamance Regional Medical Center in Burlington, N.C., little Judah Grace was born on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022 (2/22/22) at 2:22 a.m. in labor and delivery room 2. (Tuesday, as we all know, is the second day of the week.)
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The date Feb. 22, 2022 is being referred to as "Twosday" on social media since the date is made up of all twos a once-in-a-lifetime date. In fact, 2/22/22 is also a palindrome written numerically; a palindrome is a word, phrase or sequence read the same way forward and backward.
The next time 2/22/22 will occur on a Tuesday will not be for another 400 years in 2422 according to the National Weather Service.
Fun Fact: Tomorrow’s date is 2/22/22, AND falls on a Tuesday, making it “Two’s-day”. The next time all of these conditions align in the same way is in the year 2422, 400 years from now.
NWS Elko (@NWSElko) February 21, 2022
Understanding Lymphoma
Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system that affects infection-fighting cells called lymphocytes. And there are more than 40 different types of lymphoma.
"Lymphoma is split up into a number of different categories," Dr. Elise Chong, a medical oncologist at Penn Medicine, tells SurvivorNet.
"The first distinguishing breakpoint, if you will, is non-Hodgkin lymphoma versus Hodgkin lymphoma," she adds, "and those sound like two different categories. But non-Hodgkin lymphoma comprises the majority of lymphoma, and Hodgkin lymphoma is a single specific type of lymphoma."
What Kind of Lymphoma Do You Have? Why Your Type Matters
Hodgkin lymphoma the type Aberli was diagnosed with has distinctive, giant cells called Reed-Sternberg cells. The presence of these cells, which can be seen under a microscope, will help your doctor determine which of the two lymphoma types you have.
There are a few other important differences between non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma to note. For one thing, non-Hodgkin lymphoma is much more common. And you are more likely to be diagnosed with it after age 55. People usually develop Hodgkin lymphoma at a younger age.
It should be noted that another difference between these two types of lymphoma is that non-Hodgkin lymphoma is more likely to spread in a random fashion and be found in different groups of lymph nodes in the body, while Hodgkin lymphoma is more likely to grow in a uniform way from one group of lymph nodes directly to another.
These two different types of lymphoma behave, spread and respond to treatment differently, so it is important for you to know which type you have.
How Cancer Treatment Can Affect Fertility
The treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma is typically chemotherapy, and some types of chemotherapy can destroy eggs in a woman's ovaries. This can make it impossible or difficult to get pregnant later on. Whether or not chemotherapy makes you infertile depends on the type of drug and the woman's age, since egg supply decreases with age.
"The risk is greater the older you are," Dr. Jaime Knopman, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist with years of experience treating couples and individuals experiencing infertility, tells SurvivorNet.
"If you're 39 and you get chemo that's toxic to the ovaries, it's most likely to make you menopausal," she adds. "But, if you're 29, your ovaries may recover because they have a higher baseline supply." (It is unclear how old Aberli was when she was diagnosed with lymphoma or what type of treatment she had.)
Radiation to the pelvis can destroy eggs; it can damage the uterus, too. Surgery on a woman's ovaries or uterus can hurt fertility, as well.
If you are having a treatment that includes infertility as a possible side effect, your doctor will not be able to tell you for sure whether you will have this side effect. That is why you should discuss your options for fertility preservation before starting treatment.
Freezing Eggs or Embryos: What Should I Do?
Research shows that women who have fertility preservation prior to breast cancer treatment, in particular, are more than twice as likely to give birth after treatment than those who do not take fertility-preserving measures, such as freezing eggs or embryos.
When freezing eggs or embryos is not an option, doctors may try these less common approaches:
- Ovarian tissue freezing, an experimental approach for girls who have not yet reached puberty and do not have mature eggs, or for women who must begin treatment right away and do not have time to harvest eggs.
- Ovarian suppression to prevent the eggs from maturing so that they cannot be damaged during treatment.
- Ovarian transposition, for women getting radiation to the pelvis, to move the ovaries out of the line of treatment.
Contributing: Chris Spargo
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