Fertility preservation

Dr Joseph Sgroi is part of a group of Melbourne IVF specialists providing care to women prior to cancer treatment. Cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation can impact a woman’s fertility. The impact can be temporary or permanent resulting in infertility

This could be caused by:

• The ovaries being unable to produce mature eggs (ovarian failure)
• Hormonal imbalance
• Radiation damage to the uterus or fallopian tube
• Chemotherapy causing temporary or permanent damage to eggs and follicles.

Dr Joseph Sgroi will liaise with your oncologist and provide you with the best treatment to protect your future fertility

This may include:

• Protecting the ovaries from the adverse effects of chemotherapy with medication
• Freezing embryos or mature eggs
• Ovarian Tissue Harvest and subsequent grafting of ovarian tissue once your cancer is in remission.

Some women choose to delay their reproductive life due to social reasons. Many are now choosing to freeze their eggs at a young age to protect against the natural decline of ovarian function later in life. This is in part because age-related infertility in women is one of the most common issues seen by Dr Sgroi.

As the technique for egg freezing is relatively new, it is not possible to give precise figures for the chance of pregnancy after freezing.

Currently, we would expect that:

• depending on your age ovarian stimulation should yield somewhere betwenn 6-12 eggs
• approximately 70-80% of eggs would survive thawing,
• approximately 60% of surviving eggs would fertilise,
• approximately 90% of fertilised eggs would develop into embryos,
• once again depending on your age the chance of pregnancy from one embryo is 15-35%.
• The age when a woman’s eggs are frozen will ultimately effect her change of pregnancy later in life