Treatment FAQ

why do women have egg extraction before treatment of breast cancer

by Josefina Johns Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Harvesting mature eggs from a woman's ovaries before she starts breast cancer treatment is one way to preserve fertility. Without fertility drugs, only one or two eggs, at most, per cycle will be harvested. With fertility drugs, as many as eight to 10 mature eggs can be released and harvested.Feb 22, 2022

Full Answer

What is egg harvesting for breast cancer treatment?

Harvesting mature eggs from a woman’s ovaries before she starts breast cancer treatment is one way to preserve fertility. Without fertility drugs, only one or two eggs, at most, per cycle will be harvested.

Can eggs lower breast cancer risk?

A case-control study of the participants in the Nurses' Health Study found that consumption of eggs during high school was associated with lower risk of breast cancer for the women in adulthood.

Can breast cancer treatment affect my fertility?

Having breast cancer treatment may mean you have to think about your fertility sooner than you had planned. While your main concern is probably treating your breast cancer, if having children of your own is important to you then procedures to preserve your fertility – such as IVF or freezing eggs – can be offered.

Should women with cancer freeze their embryos or eggs?

Experts recommend freezing embryos or eggs, called cryopreservation, to help preserve fertility for certain females with cancer. It's important to find a fertility specialist and center that has experience in these procedures. The process of collecting eggs for embryo and egg freezing are the same. However, the timing can be different.

How is fertility preservation used in breast cancer?

The currently available options of fertility preservation for patients with breast cancer include cryopreservation of embryos, oocytes, and ovarian tissue and gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist treatment before and during chemotherapy.

Why do cancer patients freeze their eggs?

Cryopreservation (freezing embryos or eggs) Experts recommend freezing embryos or eggs, called cryopreservation, to help preserve fertility for certain females with cancer. It's important to find a fertility specialist and center that has experience in these procedures.

What happens to eggs during chemo?

Cancer treatments may affect your fertility Talk with your health care team to learn what to expect, based on your treatment(s): Chemotherapy (especially alkylating agents) can affect the ovaries, causing them to stop releasing eggs and estrogen. This is called primary ovarian insufficiency (POI).

Can I freeze my eggs if I have breast cancer?

Women who receive a breast cancer diagnosis while they are still young enough to bear children can take time to freeze their eggs and embryos without fear of delaying their cancer treatment, according to research by UC San Francisco scientists who have helped develop a faster fertility preservation technique that can ...

Does insurance cover egg retrieval for cancer patients?

California will require health insurance companies to cover the cost of fertility procedures for patients undergoing treatment that can make it difficult to have children, such as chemotherapy, under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday.

Do you have to freeze your eggs before chemo?

Ideally, egg freezing for cancer patients is performed before chemotherapy, radiation therapy or fertility-impacting surgeries. However, it is important to keep in mind that it can take between two to six weeks to retrieve eggs for freezing. Some cancer patients may not be able to afford to delay treatment.

How are female eggs preserved?

The process of egg-freezing, or in medical speak, oöcyte cryopreservation, involves stimulating the ovaries with hormones to produce multiple eggs, retrieving the eggs from the ovaries and taking them to the lab, where they're cooled to subzero temperatures to be thawed at a later date.

Can eggs be harvested from a removed ovary?

The egg-producing tissue from the ovary is removed, frozen and stored until the patient has completed treatment and wishes to become pregnant or have normal hormone production resume.

How can I protect my ovaries during chemo?

There are currently several options to help women of reproductive age who are undergoing ovary-damaging chemotherapy treatment maintain the possibility of having children. They include two drugs, goserelin (Zoladex®) and leuprolide (Lupron®), which temporarily shut down the ovaries to protect them during chemotherapy.

Can you have children after treatment for breast cancer?

Many women are able to become pregnant after being treated for breast cancer. However, some treatments can make it harder to get pregnant.

Is IVF safe after breast cancer?

The present study showed no elevated risk for relapse of breast cancer after IVF childbirth compared with childbirth after spontaneous conception in women previously treated for breast cancer.

How long does it take to freeze eggs before chemo?

The process of egg or embryo freezing takes about 2 weeks.

How many eggs a week can cause cancer?

Even just a few eggs a week may be associated with a 19 percent greater risk of colorectal cancer, but hit three or more eggs a week, and the increased risk may be as high as 71 percent. And finally, breast cancer: a significant increase in breast cancer risk once women get up to around five eggs a week.

Why are beef, chicken, pork and dairy contaminated?

Now, due to the industrialization of animal and produce farming, the available beef, chicken, pork and dairy are essentially poisoned by contaminated feed and air, toxins, antibiotics,and literally sickening processing processes, just to name a few things.

Can eating 5 eggs a week cause prostate cancer?

Increasing consumption by five eggs a week may increase the risk of fatal prostate cancer 47 percent, though that’s just for fatal prostate cancer. No relationship was found between eggs and prostate cancer in general; just eggs and the deadly forms. It’s not necessarily the cholesterol, though.

Is egg consumption associated with breast cancer?

Adding together all the studies doesn’t change the conclusion: “egg consumption [is] associated with increased breast cancer risk.”. A single serving of eggs may exceed the old 300mg daily limit by like 40 percent.

Does eating eggs cause cancer?

Eating lots of cholesterol-rich foods may increase the formation of toxic bile acids, which may at least affect colorectal cancer and lung cancer. There does seem to be a dose-response relationship found for egg consumption and cancers of the gut.

Is eating eggs bad for you?

Egg consump tion is also associated with increased risk of ovarian cancer, where women make their own eggs, something we’ve known for over 15 years now. “Eggs can also be a source of heterocyclic amines [carcinogenic chemicals that] are formed during high temperature frying.”.

Can fried eggs cause bladder cancer?

That would be consistent with the bladder cancer data, suggesting fried egg consumption may double cancer risk, but not boiled eggs. The researchers considered the high cholesterol content of eggs, though, to be most plausible explanation for the ovarian cancer link.

How to preserve fertility after cancer treatment?

Women who are about to undergo cancer treatment have various options when it comes to fertility preservation. For example: 1 Embryo cryopreservation. This procedure involves harvesting eggs, fertilizing them and freezing them so they can be implanted at a later date. Research shows that embryos can survive the freezing and thawing process up to 90% of the time. 2 Egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation). In this procedure, you'll have your unfertilized eggs harvested and frozen. Human eggs don't survive freezing as well as human embryos. 3 Radiation shielding. In this procedure, small lead shields are placed over the ovaries to reduce the amount of radiation exposure they receive. 4 Ovarian transposition (oophoropexy). During this procedure, the ovaries are surgically repositioned in the pelvis so they're out of the radiation field when radiation is delivered to the pelvic area. However, because of scatter radiation, ovaries aren't always protected. After treatment, you might need to have your ovaries repositioned again to conceive. 5 Surgical removal of the cervix. To treat early-stage cervical cancer, a large cone-shaped section of the cervix, including the cancerous area, is removed (cervical conization). The remainder of the cervix and the uterus are preserved. Alternatively, a surgeon can partially or completely remove the cervix and the connective tissues next to the uterus and cervix (radical trachelectomy).

When should fertility be discussed with children treated for cancer?

Fertility should be discussed with children treated for cancer as soon as they are old enough to understand. Your consent and your child's might be required before a procedure can be done. If your child has begun puberty, options might include oocyte or sperm cryopreservation.

What is the procedure for fertility preservation?

For example: Embryo cryopreservation. This procedure involves harvesting eggs, fertilizing them and freezing them so they can be implanted at a later date.

What is the surgical removal of the cervix?

Surgical removal of the cervix. To treat early-stage cervical cancer, a large cone-shaped section of the cervix, including the cancerous area, is removed (cervical conization). The remainder of the cervix and the uterus are preserved.

Can fertility preservation be used to delay cancer treatment?

There's no evidence that current fertility preservation methods can directly compromise the success of cancer treatments. However, you could compromise the success of your treatment if you delay surgery or chemotherapy to pursue fertility preservation.

Is radiation bad for fertility?

Radiation. Radiation can be more damaging to fertility than chemotherapy, depending on the location and size of the radiation field and the dose given. For example, high doses of radiation can destroy some or all of the eggs in the ovaries. Other cancer medications.

Can cancer affect fertility?

The effects might be temporary or permanent. The likelihood that cancer treatment will harm your fertility depends on the type and stage of cancer, the type of cancer treatment, and your age at the time of treatment. Cancer treatments and their effects might include:

How is ovarian tissue removed?

This procedure is still experimental. It involves all or part of one ovary being removed by laparoscopy (a minor surgery where a thin, flexible tube is passed through a small cut near the navel to reach and look into the pelvis). The ovarian tissue is usually cut into small strips, frozen, and stored. After cancer treatment, the ovarian tissue can be thawed and placed in the pelvis (transplanted). Once the transplanted tissue starts to function again, the eggs can be collected and attempts to fertilize them can be done in the lab.

How long after chemo can I get pregnant?

In females who were fertile before treatment, the body may recover naturally after treatment. It may be able to keep or restore normal hormonal cycles. and produce mature eggs that can be fertilized and implanted into the uterus to become a fetus. The medical team may recommend waiting anywhere from 6 months to 2 years before trying to get pregnant. Waiting 6 months may reduce the risk of birth defects from eggs damaged by chemotherapy or other treatments. The 2-year period is generally based on the fact that the risk of the cancer coming back (recurring) is usually highest in the first 2 years after treatment. The length of time depends on the type of cancer and the treatment used.

How to preserve fertility in a female?

Embryo freezing. Embryo freezing, or embryo cryopreservation, is an effective way to help preserve fertility for females. Mature eggs are removed from the female and put in a sterile lab dish with several thousand sperm. The goal is for one of the sperm to then fertilize the egg.

What is ovarian transposition?

Ovarian transposition means moving the ovaries away from the target zone of radiation treatment. It’s a standard option for girls or young females who are going to get pelvic radiation. It can be used either before or after puberty.

How long does it take for cancer to come back?

The 2-year period is generally based on the fact that the risk of the cancer coming back (recurring) is usually highest in the first 2 years after treatment. The length of time depends on the type of cancer and the treatment used.

What is the process of in vitro fertilization?

In vitro intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF-ICSI) involves taking a single sperm and injecting it directly into an egg to fertilize it. In both IVF and IVF-ICSI, the lab dish is observed and if the egg is fertilized, the embryo can be frozen.

Why do women shut down their ovaries?

The hope is that reducing activity in the ovaries during treatment will reduce the number of eggs that are damaged, so women might be able to resume normal menstrual cycles after treatment.

Can eggs cause lymphoma?

One U.S. study found that a high intake of eggs was associated with an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Past studies reported conflicting results as to the relationship between eggs and ovarian cancer, however more recent population studies and study reviews have concluded that egg consumption does not appear to increase the risk ...

Can you eat eggs if you have high cholesterol?

Consumers previously were warned away from eating eggs due to their high cholesterol content, but it appears that consumption of up to one egg per day might not have substantial overall impact on the risk of coronary heart disease or stroke for otherwise healthy men and women.

Does eating eggs cause cancer?

Breast cancer-related effects of eating eggs. Choline consumption has been found to be associated with lower risk of breast cancer in some studies. In addition, lutein consumption and circulating lutein levels have been found to be associated with reduced risk of breast cancer in several epidemiological studies.

Can eggs cause breast cancer?

Studies have not established the effect of eggs on breast cancer. Chicken eggs are a good dietary sources of choline, lutein and selenium. Consumers previously were warned away from eating eggs due to their high cholesterol content, but it appears that consumption of up to one egg per day might not have substantial overall impact on the risk ...

Does eating eggs during high school cause breast cancer?

A case-control study of the participants in the Nurses' Health Study found that consumption of eggs during high school was associated with lower risk of breast cancer for the women in adulthood. A major study combining the data in eight previous prospective North American and European studies found breast cancer risk was slightly decreased ...

Is eating eggs bad for breast cancer?

A case-control study of women in Shanghai found that egg consumption was associated with significantly lower risk of breast cancer. However, a 2014 meta-analysis of previous studies reported that women who consumed eggs had a slightly elevated risk of breast cancer.

Is egg laying humane?

The most humane egg-laying conditions are provided for hens producing American Humane Certified, Certified Humane or Animal Welfare Approved eggs. Based on the studies we have reviewed, there was once a protective effect of egg consumption on breast cancer risk that appears to have declined over time. This may be due in part to modern egg ...

Can you get pregnant after breast cancer treatment?

Many women are able to become pregnant after treatment for breast cancer. However, some treatments can make it harder to get pregnant. If you think you may want to have children one day, or just want to keep your options open, the best time to talk to your doctor about this is before you begin breast cancer treatment.

Can breast cancer affect a baby?

There is no proof that a woman’s past breast cancer has any direct effect on her baby. Researchers have found no increased rate of birth defects or other long-term health concerns in children born to women who have had breast cancer.

Can you breastfeed after breast surgery?

If you have had breast surgery and/or radiation, you might have problems breastfeeding from the affected breast. Studies have shown reduced milk production in that breast as well as structural changes that can make breastfeeding painful, or make it harder for the baby to latch onto the breast. Still, many women are able to breastfeed.

Can breast cancer come back from breastfeeding?

Could pregnancy and breastfeeding make my breast cancer come back? Many breast cancers are sensitive to estrogen, so there has been concern that for women who have had breast cancer, the high hormone levels that result from a pregnancy might increase the chance of the cancer coming back.

Does breastfeeding cause breast cancer?

Studies have shown, though, that pregnancy does not increase the risk of the cancer coming back after successful treatment. There’s also no proof that breastfeeding after breast cancer treatment increases the risk of recurrence. In fact, some research suggests having a history of breastfeeding might actually lower the risk of the cancer coming back.

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