leigh krietsch boerner brain health the wirecutter

In their study, Green and colleagues sent questionnaires to about 3,600 women who had cancer as girls, between 19, and also to about 2,100 of their sisters, asking about any pregnancies the women might have had.Ībout 3 of every 10 former cancer patients had been pregnant at least once, compared to about 5 out of 10 of their sisters, the researchers report in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility. This type of radiation isn’t used for leukemia patients as often now as it once was, Fangusaro, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Reuters Health.īut there are “many women who were treated for this 10 or 15 years ago” who could be at risk for fertility problems, Green said, and doctors don’t know exactly what their numbers are.

Jason Fangusaro, a pediatrician at Children’s Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. “For brain tumors, radiation has always been part of the treatment,” although doctors are using more chemotherapy now than they have in the past, said Dr. Leukemia - cancer of the white blood cells - is sometimes treated this way if cancer cells show up in the fluid that bathes the spinal cord and the brain. Instead, Green and his colleagues wanted to know what happens to the fertility of girls who have radiation that reaches two glands next to the brain, the pituitary and the hypothalamus. None of the girls had radiation of their ovaries, which might have affected their fertility. 2011 Current position: Research Operator, Science Applications International Corporation (Crane, IN) Brigitte Spencer, M.S. Others had cancers of the lymph nodes, bone, or muscles. 2011 Current position: Science Editor, The Sweethome and The Wirecutter David Dye, Ph.D. Most of the girls in the study, about 6 out of 10, had either leukemia or a brain tumor. “It was not known that more modest doses can possibly have an effect on fertility,” Green, who was a co-author on the study, told Reuters Health. However, there are few systems that have a convenient or selective trigger. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. When designing a drug to be used in the body, such as a chemotherapy drug, releasing the medicine at the right place and time is very important. NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Low doses of radiation therapy to the head, for brain tumors or some other cancers, might make it slightly harder for girls to have babies when they get older, a new study shows.ĭoctors already knew that higher doses of radiation for these conditions can interfere with a woman’s fertility, because it can destroy cells in the brain that control how her ovaries produce eggs, said Dr.

Leigh krietsch boerner brain health the wirecutter