Management of young women with early breast cancer – focus on fertility preservation

Management of young women with breast cancer is complex and has several particularities, one of which is fertility preservation, a very important quality of life issue for young breast cancer survivors. Chemotherapy can be gonadotoxic and signifi cantly reduce woman`s reproductive potential and cause premature ovarian insuffi ciency while endocrine therapy requires a delay of pregnancy and indirectly aff ects fertility. Therefore every woman of reproductive age diagnosed with breast cancer should be informed about potential gonadotoxic eff ect of cancer treatment, the risk of premature ovarian insuffi ciency and associated symptoms, available fertility preservation methods, delay of cancer treatment and chances of subsequent pregnancy. If interested in fertility preservation breast cancer patients should be referred as early as possible to a reproductive specialist to further discuss the risk of infertility and available fertility preservation options. Currently established methods for fertility preservation are embryo and oocyte cryopreservation, while ovarian tissue cryopreservation, cryopreservation of immature oocytes and ovarian suppression with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists are still considered experimental. The aim of this review is to highlight the importance of fertility preservation as an important quality of life issue for young breast cancer survivors.