Women battling cancer may no longer have to worry about infertility

  • Scores of women battling cancer are forced to consider freezing their eggs
  • However, brutal NHS rationing has left access to IVF as a postcode lottery
  • German researchers believe they have unearthed a way to preserve eggs
  • Laboratory tests on mice given chemotherapy drugs proved successful

Women may no longer have to worry about becoming infertile in the future if they undergo chemotherapy, a study suggests.

Thousands are forced to consider freezing their eggs when they are diagnosed with cancer and consider fertility treatment if they ever wish to have a family.

However brutal NHS rationing has left IVF as a postcode lottery and means many desperate women are forced to fork out for the treatment privately. 

But German researchers believe they have unearthed a way to preserve eggs from being killed off by powerful chemo drugs.

Tests on mice proved successful and stopped the rodents from having their finite supply of ooyctes being killed.  

Thousands are forced to consider freezing their eggs when they are diagnosed with cancer if they ever wish to have a family. Brutal NHS rationing has left IVF as a postcode lottery

Women are born with a limited number of oocytes, the medical term for immature egg cells. They are born with roughly one million.

The menopause begins when this pool is depleted, scientists said, which explains why chemo can bring on the life change so abruptly.  

Most chemotherapy drugs cause DNA damage to cells to try and stop them from mutating. This, however, triggers the death of oocytes.  

This process, called apoptosis, is caused by the protein p63 and eventually robs women of their ability to have anymore children. 

Experts at the Institute for Biophysical Chemistry of Goethe University, Frankfurt, have now decoded how p63 works in oocytes. 

In laboratory tests on mouse ovaries, the scientists led by Professor Volker Dötsch found p63 is dormant in non-damaged cells.

However, it is awoken when the body senses the DNA damage caused by chemo – causing the eventual death of oocytes.  

HOW CAN CHEMOTHERAPY LEAVE WOMEN INFERTILE? 

More than 20,000 women of childbearing age are diagnosed with cancer and have to undergo grueling chemotherapy each year in the UK. 

Most chemotherapy drugs cause DNA damage to cells to try and stop them from mutating. This, however, triggers the death of oocytes.

Women are born with a limited number of oocytes, the medical term for immature egg cells. They are born with roughly one million. 

Thousands are thus forced to consider freezing their eggs when they are diagnosed with cancer if they ever wish to have a family. 

Turning the p63 protein off protected oocytes from dying in mice – despite them being given chemotherapy drugs.

In a press release, Professor Dötsch and his team claimed the results ‘open new opportunities’ for a way of preserving oocytes.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, come amid funding cuts to various services in the NHS. 

An MP today called for an end to the ‘injustice’ of unequal access to IVF amid warnings it could be squeezed out of the NHS.

Labour’s Steve McCabe hit out at ‘arbitrary criteria’ determining access to treatment, as well as the wide range of prices for it across England. 

He has tabled draft legislation that would eliminate regional variations between different clinical commissioning groups for IVF treatment. 

Currently, IVF is only offered on the NHS if certain criteria are met. Patients who don’t are usually left with no alternative but to pay for private treatment.

In 2013, Nice published new fertility guidelines about who should have access to the treatment in England and Wales.

The watchdog recommends that women under 40 should be offered three cycles for free if they have been trying to conceive for three years.

However, individual CCGs make the final decision about who can access it in their local area, and their criteria may be stricter. 

Just 12 per cent of CCGs offer the level of services recommended by Nice, according to estimates by fertility regulators.  

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