How cancer affects your fertility depends on the type of cancer you have and on the treatment that you receive. Infertility after cancer treatment can be temporary, or it can last for a few months or a few years. In other situations, it may be permanent.

• Women: Some cancer treatments may damage your ovaries and decrease your ovarian reserve. Cancer treatment may also impact your hormone production and the communication between your brain and your ovaries. Surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy to treat cancer may damage your reproductive organs. In some cases your reproductive organs will have to be removed partly or entirely.
• Men: Some cancer treatments may affect your sperm quantity (eg: low numbers of sperm are made), sperm quality (eg: the sperm that are made do not work properly) or sperm motility (eg: the sperm move poorly). In some cases the testicles also become damaged or other reproductive organs are removed during surgery.

While there are many reasons why a person may wish to delay childbearing, one challenge for female patients can be age-related fertility decline that may limit their ability to become parents or create their desired family size.

Reproductive aging is a natural process that occurs in all women, eventually leading to reproductive senescence and menopause. Over the past 50 years, there has been a trend towards delayed motherhood resulting from a variety of societal changes. Postponing reproduction can increase the chance of a woman remaining involuntarily childless as well as an increase in pregnancy complications in those that do achieve pregnancy at advanced maternal age.

For some women, the reality is that childbearing has been unavoidably delayed. Your most fertile years are your 20s and early 30s when the ovaries still contain a large number of healthy eggs. For the 10 – 15 years before menopause, even if you have regular monthly periods, the ovarian function and egg quality deteriorates. This is particularly true for women in their 40s.

If you want to have a child in the future but find you do not have the opportunity during your most fertile years, fertility preservation techniques may be an option for you. It allows you to wait until you have met the right partner or are ready to start your family.