The government plans to subsidize the cost of freezing eggs and sperm for young cancer patients, whose treatments could cause infertility.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry plans to start providing the financial aid from fiscal 2021 as part of measures touted by the administration of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to support fertility treatments.
The subsidy is expected to be 250,000 yen for eggs and 25,000 yen for sperm. A formal decision will be made based on the discussions of an expert panel to be established in January next year.
Treatment with anticancer drugs and radiation can damage patients' ovaries and testes, causing infertility in some cases. Married patients have the option of freezing fertilized eggs, while unmarried patients can freeze their eggs and sperm.
A fertilized egg can be implanted into a patient's uterus after the completion of cancer treatment.
Public medical insurance does not cover cryopreservation, which can cost as much as about 50,000 yen for sperm and between 400,000 yen and 800,000 yen for fertilized eggs and eggs. Many patients give up on cryopreservation because of its costs, prompting related organizations to request support from the government.
According to sources, the proposed subsidy scheme is expected to cover not only cancer patients but also patients with intractable diseases whose medical treatments could cause infertility. The ministry also plans to impose conditions such as obliging patients to plan for pregnancy or childbirth by the age of 43.
Fertility treatment using cryopreservation is relatively new. The probability of pregnancy or delivery and the effectiveness of long-term preservation have not been fully verified, so the ministry is positioning the initiative as a research project and plans to limit the number of medical institutions where the subsidy will be available.
The annual budget for the project will be about 2 billion yen, with the central and prefectural governments each contributing half of the figure. About 7,000 people annually are expected to receive subsidized treatments.
The masimum subsisdy per treatment will be 300,000 yen for fertilized eggs, 250,000 yen for eggs and 25,000 yen for sperm.
Twenty-one prefectures, including Miyagi and Osaka, have already established related subsidies, but the amount of support varies depending on the local government.
Covering fertility treatment with health insurance is one of the Suga Cabinet's signature policies. Support for cancer patients is among measures it has launched to expand the current subsidy system in its preliminary steps.
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