Hospitals strive to preserve fertility for cancer patients

BEIJING, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Dongdong (not her real name), an advanced endometrial cancer patient, never thought she would have the chance to have a child after being diagnosed with the severe disease.

For such a malignant tumor, the conventional treatment is to surgically remove the uterus, leading to the loss of patient's fertility. However, Dongdong was lucky because she received a special treatment plan, preserving her fertility successfully.

The mother of a 10-month-old shared her story of battling cancer and giving birth to her child at a session held by the Peking University People's Hospital (PKUPH) recently.

Diagnosed with a malignant tumor four years ago, Dongdong was told that the tumor had metastasized and a hysterectomy was urgently needed after she went to hospitals in several cities. "Although I still hoped to be a mother," recalled Dongdong, who just got married.

She finally found the solution at the Beijing-based PKUPH.

"The therapeutic solution of her pervious hospitals was reasonable. I clearly remember that she was in tears, while very determined to keep her uterus," said her doctor Wang Jianliu, also deputy head of the PKUPH. "So we decided to try our best to preserve her fertility," he noted.

The medical team started to treat Dongdong by using chemotherapy and high doses of progesterone, on the premise of ensuring that the cancer did not endanger her life.

Fertility preservation is usually performed in the early stage of endometrial cancer, and the progesterone works against the tumor, Wang said, adding that for Dongdong, whose cancer is at an advanced stage, chemotherapy was additionally needed to keep the cancer cells from spreading further.

The treatment used for Dongdong achieved positive results. She was impregnated by assisted reproductive technology in late 2021, one of dozens of successful pregnancies with endometrial cancer treated at the hospital.

Over the past decade, Wang has led his team, in collaboration with hospitals in Tianjin and Shanghai, to continue the study of the pathogenesis of gynecological cancers, helping patients with such diseases to preserve fertility.

According to the PKUPH, a series of freezing techniques, including egg freezing, embryo freezing, and ovarian tissue freezing, are also in operation to help prepubescent cancer patients with fertility preservation.

An 11-year-old leukemia patient with the pseudonym Xiaoxin successfully underwent an ovarian tissue freezing operation before a bone marrow transplant at the PKUPH in February.

The operation, or ovarian tissue cryopreservation, saved her ability to get pregnant in the future by preserving her ovarian tissue at a low temperature, said Tian Li, deputy head of the hospital's obstetrics and gynecology department.

This freezing technique is suitable for patients urgently needing surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy, which may cause ovarian damage or premature ovarian failure.

After Xiaoxin's disease improves, her ovarian tissue will get unfrozen and be transferred back into her body to recover endocrine and ovulation functions, Tian said.