For women with cancer, there’s a growing arsenal of therapies available to help control or even cure their disease. But sometimes, those treatments come with a potentially life-changing side-effect: They can cause premature menopause.
Normally, among women in the United States, menopause occurs between ages 45 and 58, with an average age of 52, after which a woman no longer has menstrual periods and can no longer get pregnant.
Certain treatments for cancer and various non-cancer conditions can induce menopause earlier than usual – sometimes as early as women’s 20s or 30s. The phenomenon is often caused “chemopause,” because chemotherapy is frequently involved. But other cancer treatments can lead to premature menopause as well, including radiation and surgery.
Sometimes, premature menopause and fertility issues can appear months or years after cancer treatment ends – a phenomenon known as “reproductive late effects.”
Increasingly, medical providers and researchers are focusing on ways to preserve the fertility of both women and men through their cancer journey – a multidisciplinary field called “oncofertility” – and to alleviate early menopause symptoms.
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To better understand premature menopause and fertility issues induced by cancer treatments, we turned to University of Colorado Anschutz Cancer Center member Jill Alldredge, MD. She is an associate professor in CU Anschutz Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s Division of Gynecologic Oncology.
Alldredge was recently named co-director of the CU Anschutz Fertility Preservation and Reproductive Late Effects Program, a collaboration of the cancer center, CU Anschutz OB-GYN, UCHealth, and Children’s Hospital Colorado. She co-directs the program with Kristine Corkum, MD, an assistant professor in the CU Anschutz Department of Surgery’s Division of Pediatric Surgery.