Emergency IVF versus ovarian tissue cryopreservation: decision making in fertility preservation for female cancer patients

Abstract

Hundreds of thousands of women in their reproductive years are diagnosed with cancer each year. As the number of female patients who survive cancer increases, the demand for effective and individualized fertility preservation options grows. Currently there are limited clinical options for fertility preservation, and the paucity of publications describing clinical experience and outcomes data has limited accessibility to these options. Decision making for patients diagnosed with cancer requires up-to-date knowledge of the efficacy and safety of available techniques. This article describes a step-by-step approach to evaluation of the cancer patient and presents an accumulation of clinical experience with challenges unique to patients with breast cancer and leukemia. Current data on reproductive outcomes of fertility preservation techniques are examined, demonstrating increasing evidence that these techniques are becoming effective enough to offer routinely to patients facing gonadotoxic cancer therapies, including those still considered to be "experimental."