Oncology consultants confirmed that cancer survivors are deprived of offspring, due to the lack of fertilization technology in cancer treatment centers in the Kingdom. Dr. Abdullah Al-Zahrani, Dr. Khaled Al-Saleh, Dr. Shadi Khayyat, Dr. Muteb Al-Fahidi and Dr. Hani Al-Hashemi emphasized during the recent cancer research conference in Dammam that although the third right of the list of cancer patients'' rights stipulates the necessity of preserving the patient''s right to reproduction as a precaution for the possibility of causing treatments Chemical and radiation cancer and bone marrow transplantation of the patient with sterility, but it is difficult to preserve this right in light of the lack of most hospitals treating cancer to centers for assisted fertilization with IVF technology, ICSI and freezing of sperm, stressing that the occurrence of infertility is one of the possible side effects of oncology treatments and the probability of causing the treatment varies. Infertility, according to the patient''s condition and the type of treatment used, in the case of using the bone marrow transplantation method, the probability of the patient being infertile reaches 80%, which is a high percentage, and doctors state that the methods used to preserve childbearing differ between married and unmarried women, so if the individual is of both sexes, Married and with cancer, he is referred to the assisted fertilization program at a specialist so that he has frozen embryos that can be used after recovery from the disease. M disposing of it in the event of the death of one of the spouses, but if the patient is an unmarried man, his sperms are frozen, and if the girl is unmarried, then it is given two weeks before the start of treatment as a drug that inhibits ovarian activity. "Emergency cases. Treatment is started immediately, regardless of the issue of childbearing."
Doctors say that in the event that a cancer patient is a child, one of the ways to preserve his right to have children at a later time, which is still under study and research, is to freeze part of the girl’s ovarian tissue and the boy’s testicular tissue.
They emphasized that few hospitals in the Kingdom provide treatment for cancer, and they have centers to help the patient conceive by following the aforementioned methods, which disrupt the right of reproduction and impede its implementation for many, especially since a large group of people with cancer in the Kingdom are young people who are still in the period Fertility and their desire to have children, which doubles the need to reconcile the service of cancer treatment with the service of preserving the right to reproduction, unlike in the West who develop cancer at an advanced age.
Doctors confirm that one of the obstacles to implementing the assisted fertilization program for cancer patients is the misconceptions they have about it, in terms of IVF or ICSI techniques, as they believe that it is forbidden or that it causes deformation of embryos, so that some young patients prefer to endure their infertility and refuse to freeze the embryos resulting from Assisted fertilization techniques.
