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Dr. Schmidt explains if a woman's cancer regimen can be altered to prevent infertility.
Dr. Schmidt:
It can be improved in several ways. If she has a plan of surgical treatment they can try to stay away from the ovaries. What’s a very common and most very good oncology surgeons do is, if they are going to do radiation of the pelvis they can actually move those ovaries out of the pelvis. They don’t transplant them, but they will suspend them to a higher location so that they are not in the radiation field so they are not as affected or not affected at all by radiation, which is a lifesaving thing.
There have also been some studies done in Europe where they have taken ovarian tissue and put it in a person’s arm and then later doing IVF to get a pregnancy.
If you find yourself in the situation where you have been given a diagnosis of cancer the first thing to do is to seek a reproductive endocrinologist so that the reproductive endocrinologist and the oncologist, whether it’s a surgical or medical oncologist can work together as a team to maximize your potential of cure and motherhood in the future.
About Dr. Schmidt, M.D.:
Dr. Lila Schmidt, M.D., is a reproductive endocrinology infertility doctor at Alvarado Hospital. She completed an OB/GYN residency and then received further training in reproductive endocrinology, focusing on PMS, menopause, and infertility.
Visit Dr. Schmidt at Alvarado Hospital