Some young women may be able to store fertilised eggs (embryos) before their cancer treatment begins, even if the treatment is unlikely to affect fertility. To be able to store embryos your eggs need to be fertilised with sperm from your partner. Before the eggs are fertilised and stored both of you must sign a consent form and neither can use the embryo to start a pregnancy without the other's permission.
Teenage girls and young women without a partner may be able to store unfertilised eggs, although the chance of a successful pregnancy from stored unfertilised eggs is much lower. Macmillan Cancer Support can give you information about the process of egg collection and storage.
The process of egg collection takes a few weeks and involves giving hormone injections to stimulate the ovaries to produce more eggs than normal. If cancer treatment needs to start immediately it may not be possible to collect eggs before treatment starts. Egg collection may also not be recommended if the cancer is hormone dependent as the hormone injections may make the cancer grow.
Your doctor or specialist nurse can discuss this with you. It may be possible to collect one or two eggs without stimulating the ovaries.
storage
Embryos and eggs can be stored safely for many years. The embryos or eggs are kept in special tanks containing liquid nitrogen, which is very cold. In the UK, both can usually be stored for a maximum of 10 years, although this can be extended for women who have had cancer treatments. No embryos or eggs are allowed to be stored after the woman reaches the age of 55.
Although the fertility clinic storing your embryos will take every care to protect them, some of the embryos won’t survive the freezing and thawing process. Unfertilised eggs are less likely to survive the thawing process successfully.
keeping the embryos or eggs safe
The fertility clinic storing your embryos or eggs will take great care to keep them safe:
- Your embryos or eggs will be carefully labelled, so they can’t be mixed up with anyone else’s.
- The tanks holding the frozen embryos and eggs are fitted with alarms to let the scientists know immediately if there’s a problem (which is rare).
- The clinic will have spare tanks they can move your embryos or eggs into if there’s a problem that can’t be fixed.
- Your embryos or eggs will be stored in different tanks. This means that if there’s a problem with one of the tanks not all of them will be affected.
In spite of all this care, it is important to be aware that accidents may still happen due to unforeseen circumstances. However, these are extremely rare.
