Chemotherapy

Women diagnosed with cancer face many important decisions regarding their treatment and future. At that critical time, fertility preservation may be the last thing being considered. We know that chemotherapeutic medications as well as radiation can affect future fertility by destroying or severely damaging a woman’s ovaries or put the patient into early menopause. There are now options for these women to have a family in the future depending on the type of cancer, chemotherapy and radiation treatments prescribed, her age, her underlying ovarian reserve and other factors.

In the past, the only option open to women facing these challenges would be to fertilize their eggs and freeze the embryos. Although this may be an option for women in committed relationships, until recently, others faced these challenges with little hope. Now, in addition to freezing embryo’s, some women have the option to preserve the integrity of the eggs within the ovaries. They can be frozen and used in the future to create a family. Laurel Fertility Care has a nationally accredited laboratory and our embryologist has studied extensively the technique of egg freezing.