Every day 30 new cases of cancer are registered in Italy in patients of childbearing age, but today fertility preservation techniques in cancer patients are accessible and reimbursable by the National Health Service. This was underlined by the Italian Society of Human Reproduction (Siru).
“Every day in Italy – explains Siru – at least 30 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in patients under the age of 40, equal to 3% of the general caseload (around 371,000 new cases of malignant tumor in 2019). These are pathologies oncological diseases with an important impact on the patient’s reproductive capacity”. The preservation of fertility in cancer patients, underlines Francesca Parissone, coordinator of the Special Interest Group Donation and Preservation of Fertility at Siru, “now represents a possible reality in many cases. On the one hand, anti-tumor treatment regimens with less toxicity on the reproductive system, on the other hand there are consolidated cryopreservation techniques available, i.e. the freezing of gametes, oocytes and spermatozoa, and innovative cryopreservation techniques for ovarian and testicular tissue”.
These last two techniques in particular, he clarifies, “have opened up the possibility of applying fertility preservation even in the delicate category of patients affected by childhood and adolescent tumors, an age in which the individual’s development may not yet have occurred and therefore it is impossible to recover oocytes and spermatozoa with fertilization capacity. This is a cutting-edge area.” However, “despite the notable progress we have witnessed in the last 15/20 years – comments Guglielmo Ragusa, director of the Fertility Preservation Unit at the University Hospital of Verona – to date, unfortunately, some patients still do not receive the necessary information on the possibility to preserve fertility. Therefore, in parallel with scientific progress, a process of awareness among the medical profession and information to patients should be encouraged.” “The commitment for the future – concludes Antonino Guglielmino, Siru founder – must be aimed at increasingly guaranteeing this possibility throughout the territory”.
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