Secondary Infertility After Cancer Treatment

Objective: With the advancement in cancer therapeutics lead to improvement in cure rates and survival thus making the long term side effects like infertility an issue of discussion. Materials and methods: In this chapter, we reviewed the risks of cancer and chemotherapy related risks of infertility in long term cancer survivors based on the various articles in PubMed database, Devita Hellman and research articles and also discussed about the preventive measures to restore the fertility in these patients. In this all type of studies are reviewed. Results: In this chapter, based on the cancer related treatment risk of infertility, various measures are proposed that lead to preservation of fertility like using chemotherapy regimens with low risk of infertility but with equal effectiveness, nerve sparing surgeries, fertility sparing surgeries, sperm banking, ova preservation, use of GnRH analogues, progestin therapy and counseling of the patients at first visit thus also prevent delay in start of treatment. Conclusion: There is need of an interdisciplinary collaboration between oncologists and reproductive endocrinologists and prompt referral may increase the chances of cancer patients of receiving appropriate counseling and improve the success of fertility preservation.