How Cancer Affects Fertility of Man?
Most cancer treatments affect fertility, both men and women, as they act on rapidly reproducing cells such as those which produce semen in man and ova in women, and therefore fertility. The damage that will occur will depend on the type of agent used for chemotherapy, radiotherapy dose and location, patient age, and individual susceptibility, which varies from one person to another.
The first problem with is whether we can have sufficient time needed to perform their fertility-sparing procedures prior to treatment, for use at a later stage it. In many cases it is possible to have time to proceed with these techniques before starting treatment, because the cancer must be treated immediately. In some tumors this is possible.
Normally, men who receive chemotherapy will lose much of their sperm, or all (azooespermia) to receive the treatment, but depends on the type of drug used and the dose received. If you receive radiotherapy to the lower abdomen or pelvis, especially in doses above 40 Gy, also be induced as a side effect the loss of sperm. It is not possible to predict which patients will regain their sperm function and which will remain a residual azooespermia.
Therefore the most logical option is to freeze and store semen samples from patients before starting treatment. Some time ago I did not take into account this possibility, but currently is offered to most young patients, leaving the pitfall of adolescents in which there may be some legal problems to be minor.
If it is not possible, and after treatment is important sperm present a problem, you can try to get through sperm extraction by puncture-biopsy of the testicle of the male, and inject them into the woman’s egg (this technique called intracytoplasmic sperm or ICSI), and then implanted into the uterus.
To be sure that the drug effect has passed, because although they can be retrieved sperm of poor quality and still have chromosomal abnormalities, contributing to the occurrence of early abortion or fetal malformations occur. Thus it is generally recommended to wait until a year and a half.
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