Australian researchers have found that some immunotherapy treatments for cancer can damage fertility, prompting a call for further research and preventative measures such as freezing eggs.
A pre-clinical trial, led by experts from Monash University’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, demonstrated that a common type of immunotherapy drug known as immune checkpoint inhibitors led to the permanent damage of mouse ovaries and the eggs within.
While traditional cancer therapies such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy are already known to adversely affect the ovaries, leading to infertility and premature menopause in young girls and women, the potential side effects of immunotherapy cancer drugs on fertility had been previously unknown….