Breast cancer is the most common among Spanish women and has a high incidence on women’s fertility. Although fortunately the survival rate is increasing, the truth is that the treatments against these tumors, both radiotherapy and chemotherapy, very aggressively affect female ovarian function, causing damage to the oocytes, in most cases irreversibly. This damage, as pointed out by the assisted reproduction unit of the Pintado clinic, is what causes the loss of fertility “and it must be taken into account that the older a woman is, the more difficult it will be for her to become pregnant after cancer”. . According to estimates from this clinic, having a child by natural means after suffering from breast cancer is really rare since it does not exceed 30% of cases. It is advised to wait about two years after the tumor is completely gone before trying to get pregnant.
Fortunately, there are several options to preserve a woman’s fertility before treating the tumor and the most widespread currently, and which is also covered by social security, is egg vitrification. The process begins with the stimulation of the ovary with hormones, the aspiration of the oocytes, and instead of inseminating and fertilizing them, vitrification is carried out, being later stored in liquid nitrogen. The indications are multiple and highly varied, with the common denominator of postponing oocyte insemination and/or pregnancy. The oocytes may be kept cryopreserved for as long as the patient wishes or needs, there being no time limitation.
Various studies suggest that the pregnancy rates obtained after the devitrification of the ovules are similar to those that the patients could have achieved in the age range in which they decided to freeze them. At the desired time, the eggs are thawed and the woman undergoes an in vitro fertilization process.
Egg vitrification is not only used in women with cancer, but also in those who for reasons decide to freeze their gametes to postpone maternity for economic reasons, because they have not yet found the ideal partner or because they do not have the necessary job stability. since this technique allows them to vitrify their own ovules to use them in the future and become mothers later, that is, they “stop” their biological clock until they feel ready to have a child.
On many occasions, however, a woman must start her cancer treatment immediately, without time, and that does not allow her to undergo this type of treatment. In these cases, the most appropriate thing is to undergo, as pointed out by the assisted reproduction unit of the painted clinic, the freezing of the ovarian tissue. “Through a surgical procedure called laparotomy or laparoscopy, part or all of the ovarian tissue is removed, which is dissected, and the part in which the follicles are found is cut into thin slices for freezing. Once the treatment is over, the ovarian tissue is thawed and reimplanted in the body”, they point out.
Those over 40 years of age, those who resort the most to ‘in vitro’ fertilization
Regarding traditional assisted reproduction techniques, private clinics in Vigo, as recently reported by FARO, have warned that more and more women over 40 are resorting to in vitro fertilization, but precisely at 41 years of age. someone who wants to be a mother produces less than 20% of chromosomally healthy embryos and that percentage drops to 13% in women over 42. All these data, point out the specialists from Vigo, indicate that the woman’s age is a “very important” variable ” when it comes to achieving an evolutionary pregnancy. In vitro fertilization continues to be one of the most used, a process whose cost can range between 3,000 and 5,000 euros, depending on multiple variables, such as the age of the woman, her state of health and, obviously, the clinic in which the treatment is performed. In 2021, 18% of the mothers who gave birth at Álvaro Cunqueiro had reached the age of 40 (a total of 569), when in 2010 this figure was barely 8% of the total. In other words, the general perception that women were becoming mothers at later ages is also reflected in the data. The main reason is social: future mothers prefer to delay the moment of having children until they achieve the necessary economic or work stability, because they prefer to enjoy more years of their vital fullness without family responsibilities or because they simply have not yet found the right partner with the one to share his life.
