Whether it is the vomiting, loss of appetite, pain, or hair loss, chemotherapy is a very taxing treatment that is usually reserved for fighting cancer. However, a recent study has shown that ABVD, a chemotherapy medicine that is sometimes used to treat Hodgkin’s lymphoma, can cause an increase in women’s egg production. This potential link between chemotherapy and fertility could change the face of infertility treatment.
What Does This Discovery Mean?
Before doctors found this phenomenon occurring in patients taking ABVD, it was deemed impossible to increase the number of eggs that women produced.
Most fertility treatments aim to increase the number of eggs available during ovulation, increasing a couples’ chances of fertilizing at least one egg during that set period. However, these treatments don’t have the ability to increase the total number of eggs stored in the ovaries, which means that these treatments are of little to no help for women who have a low overall count of viable eggs.
The discovery of a chemotherapy medicine that may help fertility through increased egg production gives hope to those who were unable to conceive with current fertility medications. This new finding widens the pool of women who would be deemed good candidates for infertility treatment as well as give doctors an alternative option to the fertility treatments currently being used.
What’s Next?
Although these findings of increased egg production are exciting, there is still a lot of research that needs to be done before this form of chemotherapy can be used as a fertility treatment.
First, researchers and doctors alike have to conduct more studies to see the effects of ABVD as a fertility drug on a larger sample population. The doctors in the current study were only able to look at a total of 23 women, only 8 of whom were taking ABVD.
The results remained consistent and showed signs of being statistically significant even with such a small sample size, but more research still needs to be done.
While increasing the number of participants in future studies, doctors should also research how this chemotherapy drug affects fertility through creation of new eggs in the ovaries. Understanding how ABVD stimulates egg growth could help doctors modify or come up with a completely new medication that is not chemotherapy but still improves fertility through increased egg production.
Finally, doctors need to do more research on the health of the newly formed eggs. It is possible for this drug to increase a number of eggs, but that does not necessarily mean that those eggs would be able to result in a viable pregnancy.
There are many holes in this current study, and there are many questions about the link between chemotherapy and fertility that have yet to be answered. However, this study is a step in the right direction. If anything, these results bring hope to the infertility community in finding a treatment that brings higher percentages of success and can help a larger variety of women.
But remember, as we wait on this new research, there are still fertility options available to families right now. If you’ve been unsuccessful in conceiving, you should talk to your doctor about viable treatment options.
