Fertility and Pregnancy
Both mothers and babies had good outcomes.
Women who had procedures to freeze their eggs or embryos before starting breast cancer treatment had more successful pregnancies than those who did not have these procedures.
Having a child is safe for both mother and baby if women with a BRCA mutation get pregnant after a breast cancer diagnosis.
Young women can safely stop hormonal therapy temporarily to try to become pregnant.
Having a baby after completing treatment for early-stage breast cancer doesn’t negatively affect overall survival.
Infertility seems to double the risk of breast cancer in men.
Medicines commonly used to stimulate the ovaries to release eggs during fertility treatment don’t seem to increase the risk of developing breast cancer.
Women with a mutation in the BRCA1 gene likely have fewer eggs in their ovaries than the average woman, which may shorten their window of opportunity to have children.
Younger women diagnosed with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer may skip or delay taking hormonal therapy medicine after surgery because they’re concerned about having children.
Women who have been treated for breast cancer are less likely than the average woman to get pregnant and have a higher risk of certain complications, such as preterm labor, but most deliver healthy babies and childbirth has no effect on their long-term survival.
Women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation who become pregnant after being treated for breast cancer don't have a higher risk of recurrence and their babies are healthy.
Five-year results found women diagnosed with early-stage, hormone-receptor-negative breast cancer who were treated with Zoladex in addition to chemotherapy before surgery were much less likely to be infertile after chemotherapy ended.
A meta-analysis suggests that premenopausal women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer who are treated with gonadotropin-releasing hormone analog during chemotherapy are more likely to have their periods return after treatment ends and may be more likely to have children after breast cancer treatment.
A large Dutch study strongly suggests that in vitro fertilization (IVF), a type of fertility treatment, doesn't appear to increase breast cancer risk, even years after the fertility treatment.
A study found that women with a BRCA1 mutation had levels of a hormone that indicates how many eggs are left in the ovaries that were 25% lower than women who didn't have the mutation.
Women with a history of infertility had denser breasts than women who didn't have fertility problems, and infertile women who had controlled ovarian stimulation had denser breasts than women who didn't have the treatment.
A meta-analysis suggests that women diagnosed with breast cancer who are treated with a luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone agonist in addition to chemotherapy may be more likely to become pregnant after chemotherapy ends.
Concerns about fertility caused about 30% of younger women diagnosed with hormone-receptor-positive, early-stage breast cancer to skip or stop taking tamoxifen.
A study found that young men diagnosed with cancer were 4 to 5 times more likely to take steps to preserve fertility than young women diagnosed with cancer.
Freezing embryos created from eggs extracted before treatment allowed women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer to become pregnant at rates similar to women not diagnosed with breast cancer who underwent in vitro fertilization.
Research shows that premenopausal women diagnosed with hormone-receptor-negative, early-stage breast cancer who were treated with Zoladex and chemotherapy were much less likely to be infertile.
Another study suggests that infertility treatments don't appear to increase breast cancer risk.
A study suggests that women who get pregnant after being diagnosed with breast cancer have the same recurrence risk as women who don't get pregnant after being diagnosed.
A study supports other research that suggests chemotherapy during pregnancy doesn't have harmful effects on the baby.