Study: Chemo for Childhood Cancer Affects Male Survivors’ Fertility More Than Females’

By Stacy Simon RESOURCES: Preserving fertility in boys and teens with cancerPreserving fertility in girls and teens with cancer A study by researchers from leading cancer centers across the US has found that modern chemotherapy treatments have only a small impact on the ability of female childhood and adolescent cancer survivors to have children when they grow up. However, male survivors are more likely to have fertility problems. An estimated 400,000 survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer are living in the US today. However, therapies to treat their cancer can affect their reproductive health when they become adults, making it harder for them to have their own children. One way the medical community has responded to this problem is to lower the intensity of radiation treatments, and rely more on chemotherapy instead. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and colleagues set out to study how much newer chemotherapy drugs affects childhood cancer survivors’ ability to have children. They looked at data from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, which tracks survivors of childhood cancer who were treated in the US and Canada between 1970 and 1999. The study looked at 10,938 childhood cancer survivors who were treated with 14 different commonly prescribed chemotherapy drugs and compared the number of pregnancies and children they eventually had with 3,949 of their brothers and sisters. The study focused on survivors who w...
Source: American Cancer Society :: News and Features - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: Cancer in Adolescents Childhood Cancer Source Type: news