Childhood Cancer Need Not Rob Fatherhood

Childhood cancer patients can have the hope of bearing children, according to a study of a technique designed a decade back which has been tracked for ten years. The cancer treatments young children get kill their sperms and make them infertile in their adulthood. Most are not advised about the option of storing their sperm in sperm banks. Hence, these young men can only rely on adoption or sperm donation to become fathers.

But, the pioneering efforts of researchers at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center nearly ten years back have solved some of the problems. The study which has published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology involved 73 persons, and surgeons could take out small amounts of sperm in a third of the patients, hidden in testicular tissue.  Then through in vitro fertilization, their partners became pregnant. This has resulted in 20 children being born that included 5 pairs of twins.

Although the process has met with some success, researchers have warned that the technique may not work all the time since extracting sperm has been successful among testicular cancer patients while it has been near to impossible with those who had sarcoma.  

The surgery is quite expensive, costing about $10,000 to $12,000, in addition to the costs of IVF.  But it affords men hope of fatherhood.



Source-Medindia