Serious adverse event risk after egg freezing similar for women with vs. without cancer

Key takeaways:

• Women with vs. without cancer had similar serious adverse event risk after fertility preservation.
• Younger age, more oocytes retrieved and more oocytes frozen were tied to serious adverse event risk.

DENVER — Women with cancer had similar serious adverse event risk as women without cancer after undergoing fertility preservation procedures, according to study results presented at the ASRM Scientific Congress & Expo.

“We see more and more young patients diagnosed with cancer, and these patients usually need chemotherapy to be treated and chemotherapy can have a direct impact on their fertility,” Michael Grynberg, MD, PhD, professor and head of the department of reproductive medicine and fertility preservation at Hôpital Antoine-Béclère in France, said during a presentation. “Based on this, we have more and more patients coming to us for fertility preservation.”

Grynberg and colleagues conducted a bicentric study in a local hospital from 2014 to 2021 with 3,180 women who underwent 4,476 fertility preservation cycles via oocyte and/or embryo cryopreservation after controlled ovarian stimulation (n = 3,761) or in vitro maturation (n = 715). Of these cycles, 1,678 were performed in 1,546 women with cancer. Researchers assessed risk for serious adverse events associated with fertility preservation procedures among women with and without cancer.

The primary outcomes were serious adverse events including hospitalization for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, hemorrhage, infection, thromboembolic event, ovarian torsion, acute urine retention or death. Secondary outcomes were time between oocyte retrieval and serious adverse events, hospital length of stay, total blood loss, need for surgical intervention, transfusion and ICU admission.

Overall, 29 serious adverse events associated with fertility preservation occurred including intraperitoneal hemorrhages (n = 17), ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (n = 8), infection (n = 3) and acute urine retention (n = 1).

Serious adverse event risk was not significantly different between women with and without cancer. Younger age (P = .002), more oocytes retrieved (P = .006) and more oocytes vitrified (P = .002) were all associated with serious adverse event risk after fertility preservation.

No secondary outcomes were significantly associated with serious adverse events in this study.

“Our technique of fertility preservation is not associated with higher risk of serious adverse events in the cancer population,” Grynberg said. “[Fertility preservation] should not be an issue despite the specificity of this type of patient, which could be more at high risk of developing complications.”