Response to Controlled Ovarian Stimulation Is Not Impaired in Young Patients with a Sarcoma: Results from a Monocentric Case-Control Study

Simple Summary: The impact of a cancer diagnosis on fertility is debated. Some authors suggested a detrimental effect on ovarian function and response to ovarian stimulation in patients suffering from breast cancer and hematological malignancies. Sarcomas are rare but relatively common in young women, and usually, their treatment requires the use of highly gonadotoxic chemotherapy regimens. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of patients with sarcoma during controlled ovarian stimulation for oocyte cryopreservation, compared to age-matched healthy controls. Our results indicate that patients with a sarcoma diagnosis can expect good oocyte retrieval outcomes after controlled ovarian stimulation. Therefore, oocyte cryopreservation should be recommended to these patients, whenever possible, before the beginning of gonadotoxic treatments. Sarcomas are relatively common in the young and their treatment can impair fertility. Fertility preservation can be achieved via the cryopreservation of gametes after controlled ovarian stimulation before cancer treatment. A reduced response to hormonal stimulation in patients suffering from certain types of malignancy is reported. The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of oocyte cryopreservation in patients with sarcoma by comparing their outcomes with those of a population without cancer. Patients were matched by age with control women undergoing hormonal stimulation for isolated male factor infertility. The population included 84 women with a sarcoma and 355 controls. In the final analysis, 37 patients with sarcoma were matched in a 1:3 ratio with 109 healthy controls. Patients with sarcoma were generally younger and were stimulated with lower FSH doses. They did not perform worse than controls during stimulation, with an average retrieval of 10.6 oocytes vs. 8.1 in the controls. Linear regression on the number of retrieved mature oocytes confirmed that patients with sarcoma performed comparably to controls. In conclusion, patients with sarcoma can expect retrieval outcomes comparable to those of patients without cancer.

Automated summary

The study aimed to compare the performance of patients with sarcoma to age-matched healthy controls during controlled ovarian stimulation for oocyte cryopreservation. The results showed that patients with sarcoma can expect good oocyte retrieval outcomes after controlled ovarian stimulation. Therefore, oocyte cryopreservation should be recommended to these patients before gonadotoxic treatments.