A Hope that Lives On

Preserving a persons capability to procreate is one of the worst nightmares when facing cancer disease and its subsequent treatments. Current medical science and technology somehow have done its part in attempting to preserve human fertility for the time when the person becomes free from the deadly cancer disease.

CHARLES Allen said: “When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you’re slamming the door in the face of God.”

The Pink October celebration is a living testimony that breast cancer survivors had reaped positively from a past decision of not “slamming the door in the face of God.” In a previous article this month, I left you with an understanding that medical technology in developed countries has gone far in its effort to preserve the fertility of a breast cancer patient even before she starts the treatment regimen. This is particularly important among patients who are childless at the time of cancer diagnosis, and still desire to have children in the future.

The most mature technology available today for fertility preservation, and the most effective strategy to date, is embryo cryopreservation. Using a donor sperm, the patient's egg can be made to fertilize in a test tube (in vitro). The resulting embryo is frozen for later implantation when the patient is ready to conceive. Unlike unfertilized egg cells (oocytes), which only have a survival rate of 50-60 percent, embryos survive the freezing and thawing up to 95 percent of the time. In vitro fertilization (IVF), or artificial insemination, is however a controversial technology.

The Roman Catholic Church finds this technique morally disordered. But will fertility preservation be a valid exception? Only the Church authorities can answer that. A newer technique is oocyte cryopreservation.

Premenarchal females can have their immature follicles surgically removed and frozen. In postpubertal women a transvaginal aspiration (ultrasound guided) removes the follicles. Its fertilization rate is 60-70 percent. It skips the religious problems of IVF, although not all of it.

Uncontroversial techniques are also available... [READ MORE]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 5 October 2011.

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