Pregnancy Outcome from an Oocyte Retrieval Following Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer

Abstract

As mortality rates for reproductive age cancer patients improve, it is vital to understand how treatments such as chemotherapy reduce reproductive potential. Fertility preservation before gonadotoxic chemotherapy initiation is not always possible when treatment must start as soon as possible. There are minimal data regarding pregnancy in patients who have undergone fertility preservation after chemotherapy and subsequently delivered from cryopreserved embryos. Here we report two cases of patients with breast cancer who underwent ovarian hyperstimulation and embryo cryopreservation within 12 months of chemotherapy. The first patient was diagnosed with triple negative invasive ductal carcinoma and underwent oocyte retrieval 6 months after her last dose of chemotherapy. Via gestational carrier, a term healthy infant was born. The second patient was diagnosed with hormone receptor negative, HER-2 positive invasive ductal carcinoma and underwent oocyte retrieval 2 months after her last dose of chemotherapy. Her frozen embryo transfer did not result in pregnancy. To our knowledge, this is the first report on embryo transfer outcomes in women with breast cancer using embryos cryopreserved within a year of chemotherapy exposure.