Sharing Hope
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Pacific Fertility Center is now participating in an important program that helps protect the fertility of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. Fertile Hope, an advocacy organization that raises awareness about fertility issues for cancer patients, is partnering with carefully selected clinics throughout the US in a program called Sharing Hope. The program will be open to those who have been diagnosed with cancer, want to preserve their fertility and have limited financial means. Sharing Hope offers qualifying cancer patients significant discounts for fertility-preservation treatments, such as embryo freezing and egg freezing before undergoing chemotherapy, radiation and/or surgery.
Cancer treatments can affect fertility in both men and women. In some cases infertility will be temporary, but in others it will be permanent. Currently, options are limited for cancer patients wishing to preserve their fertility. Men may freeze their sperm prior to cancer treatments to be used for artificial insemination or IVF. This is quite successful and in most cases at least 50% of a man’s sperm will survive freezing and thawing. The best option for women is to freeze embryos (via IVF). Yet this offers a viable solution only to women with partners or those willing to use donor sperm. What is the single woman diagnosed with cancer to do? She has not yet found Mr. Right, or even Mr. Perfect Sperm Donor, but knows she wants to have a child in the future. The bright spot may be egg freezing. Still considered experimental, egg freezing is a relatively new procedure and has much lower success rates than embryo freezing. Some say the numbers for egg freezing are around 1 live birth for every 100 eggs frozen, yet there are clinics around the world claiming to have 1 live birth for every 10 eggs frozen. The success of egg freezing will continue to improve as technology and scientific knowledge develop. PFC will offer egg freezing in the near future.
For some people, the idea of losing their fertility is as devastating as the diagnosis of cancer. Often, cancer patients have little time or opportunity to gather funds for the high cost of cancer treatment, let alone fertility preserving treatments. At PFC we hope to extend a helping hand to cancer patients unable to afford these costly treatments and to provide them with the hope of building a family.
You may find out more about Sharing Hope at Fertile Hope’s website
