About 7,000 cancer patients a year would like to freeze their eggs, sperm and other reproductive cells to preserve the possibility of having children after treatment, if financial support is provided, a health ministry research team estimated.
As the cost of preserving fertility is high, the research team noted that a public subsidy is needed for such patients.
Cancer treatments, including medications, can damage ovaries and testes. If patients could collect and freeze eggs and other reproductive cells to preserve them before starting therapeutics, future pregnancies could still be possible.
However, the method to freeze sperm costs 50,000, yen and preserving eggs and fertilized eggs can run over 1 million yen. As these expenditures are not covered by the public health insurance system, some patients give up the hope of one day having children.
The research team estimated that every year 6,928 people would have their eggs, ovaries, fertilized eggs and sperm frozen if financial assistance were available. The estimate is based on data such as the number of actual cases in which ova were frozen for fertility treatments and the number of cancer patients up to age 39 who are still fertile. The cost to cover the procedures of freezing such reproductive cells and organs is estimated at 2.024 billion yen to 3.95 billion yen a year.
The team made such estimates in fiscal 2016 and for the second time this year. The number of patients has risen 1.2 times that of fiscal 2016, at a maximum cost that is 3.7 times greater. These increases are partly due to the rise in the number of local governments that have launched fertility-preservation subsidies for cancer patients.
"It's necessary to develop an environment that will give hope to young patients who are battling cancer," said Yasushi Takai, a professor at Saitama Medical University who is a member of the research team.
In November, the team plans to start an investigation into the financial burden of the freezing process and other related matters.
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