Fertility preservation in cancer patients

Abstract

Traditional radiotherapy and chemotherapy often cause irreversible damage to the fertility and endocrine function of cancer patients. The current methods of fertility preservation include freezing the sperms of adult and adolescent males after puberty; freezing the embryos, oocytes, and ovarian tissue of females; and drug intervention and fertility preservation surgery. This article reviews fertility preservation in cancer patients with respect to current methods, indications, and some more recently developed methods that remain under investigation.

Keywords

• cryopreservation of ovarian tissue; cryopreservation of testis tissue; cryopreserved embryos and oocytes; fertility preservation; in vitro maturation