For premenopausal women undergoing cancer treatment, one of the most distressing complications can be infertility. A new study describes how a class of drugs once investigated as a cancer treatment may have the potential to prevent female infertility caused by radiotherapy.

Share on Pinterest Researchers have identified a drug that could help to prevent treatment-induced infertility for women with cancer.

In a study of female mice, researchers found that blocking checkpoint kinase 2 (CHK2) gene activity with drugs called CHK2 inhibitors protected the rodents’ oocytes, or immature eggs, against damage from radiation.

Study leader John Schimenti, of the departments of Biomedical Sciences and Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and colleagues recently reported their results in the journal Genetics.

Infertility is a major concern for women of reproductive age who are being treated for cancer. Both chemotherapy and radiotherapy – two of the most common cancer therapies – can destroy oocytes, making it harder for a woman to conceive, particularly after the age of 35.

Schimenti notes that while women can choose to freeze their eggs in order to increase their possibility of having children after cancer treatment, there are major risks involved.

“That is a serious dilemma and emotional issue,” he explains, “when you layer a cancer diagnosis on top of the prospect of having permanent life-altering effects as a result of chemotherapy, and must face the urgent decision of delaying treatment to freeze oocytes at the risk of one’s own life.”

With this is mind, there is a desperate need to find strategies that can help to protect a woman’s fertility during cancer treatment. The new study may have brought us one step closer to this feat.