Treatments for all types of cancer can affect fertility. Solutions exist, especially for young people, but treatment protocols do not always include them.
Treatments for cancer can affect fertility. The question of its preservation is all the more essential since it is not confined to breast cancer in women. “All cancers can be affected, regardless of the prognosis. Only age is the determining factor ”, specifies Dr. Natalie Hoog-Labouret, pediatrician in a hospital environment and responsible for coordinated actions, fertility preservation and cancer at the National Cancer Institute (Inca).
A report will soon be published on the issue of fertility preservation in cancer patients. Its purpose is to take stock of the effects of cancer treatments on fertility and existing techniques for preserving it. The initiative comes from a working group formed two years ago, in which the Inca, the Biomedicine Agency and the association Jeunes Solidarité Cancer (JSC) took part.
Listen to Emmanuelle Prada-Bordenave, director of the Biomedicine Agency: “The protocols do not include the preservation of fertility, especially in young women. “
However, solutions exist to try to preserve fertility. In addition, collection and conservation techniques have recently made significant progress. In post-pubescent men, the collection of sperm does not present any particular difficulty.
For women and children, the issue is more complicated because there is a need for surgery. In women, oocytes can be collected after ovarian stimulation. For girls, collection and storage of ovarian tissue is used. Finally, for little boys, the technique consists of isolating the testicular pulp. “This technique is brand new, even less widespread than the techniques for preserving female fertility”, underlines Prof. Catherine Poirot, head of the reproductive biology service at Tenon hospital (Paris). And therefore even less known to health professionals who take charge of cancer treatments.
“Doctors’ unease comes from not knowing how, to whom, at what age to talk about this, especially in the context of adolescents with the presence of parents,” explains Damien Dubois, founder of the JSC association. Going to talk about sperm preservation for a teenager still creates a major blockage. Oncologists are also caught in the urgency of announcing the diagnosis and treatments. Depending on the service, the coordinating nurse or oncologist discusses the subject, but the protocol is not standardized. Patients and their families, for their part, are caught up in the questions of cancer treatment and do not think about the dimension of fertility, which should have its place from the start of treatment.
Listen to Damien Dubois, founder of the association Jeunes Solidarité Cancer: “Talking about fertility preservation from the start is also talking about hope. “
However, the preservation of fertility is not systematically addressed. This is, among other things, what the report on the issue, which will be released in the last quarter of the year, points out.
Listen to Dr Natalie Hoog-Labouret, responsible for coordinated actions, fertility preservation and cancer at the Inca: “There must be equal access to information for all patients, aided by tools such as dedicated consultations. “
Until the establishment of such consultations, the professionals involved continue to inform on the subject. The preservation of fertility will be on the agenda in particular at the 29th edition of the congress of the French Society of Psycho-Oncology, on October 10, 11 and 12 in Caen.
