The Relationship Between Thyroid Cancer and Fertility

Every year, as many as 45,000 individuals get thyroid cancer in the US. Treating thyroid cancer can make women and men infertile in the future. Women get this disease three times more than men. No other cancer has numbers rising so fast for women who are in the US. It can usually be found in women who are in their child-bearing years. Thyroid cancer victims usually survive 10 years or more after they are treated of this disease. Certain women may get thyroid cancer since they lack more iodine in their diet or they were exposed to radiation in the neck before. If you inherit an abnormal gene from your parents, you may also get thyroid cancers.

Anaplastic cancer, Papillary cancer, Thyroid lymphoma, Follicular cancer, and Medullary cancer are just some kinds of cancers of the thyroid that are recognized.

If you are identified as having thyroid cancer and you are a woman, it is likely that you will also have the less severe cancers. Estrogen and these cancers are related. Estrogen may be a reason why thyroid cancer cells grow. To diagnose this cancer, the neck should be examined first and the checked by ultrasound, and then later your iodine levels should be checked prior to deciding to undergo biopsy. Generally, thyroid cancer is treated by having a thyroidectomy, which means the thyroid gland will be removed surgical and then later on radioactive iodine is also applied. For quite a while, thyroid hormones must be taken by those who have  undergone thyroidectomy. To ensure the patient is cured, his situation must be monitored way after the natural thyroid treatment.

Treatments for thyroid cancer can have repercussions on the ovary. Nobody knows if the thyroidectomy and hormonal treatments may cause infertility among males and females. How good the eggs are and how many there are in a woman's ovary can be affected by radioactive iodine. Side-affects may arise from the treatment depending on the amounts of radioactive iodine given and how old you were during the time of treatment. For some women who have been treated, they had skipped periods after they were treated. After six months, your period will return to normal. Middle aged women are at a greater risk of damaging their ovaries after the treatment.A number of women reported losing pregnancies for the first year when they were treated. No other side-effects other than miscarriages have been reported.

The testes may be susceptible to effects by radioactive iodine. Side-effects in men are more serious than in women and depends highly on the amount given. Sometimes the changes were only temporary, but there were times when the sperm counts and levels of testosterone in men were really reduced. There were men who were no longer ejaculating sperm because of permanent damage brought about by high amounts of thyroid treatment. There is no indication that newborns are affected by this, but it is suggested that someone who has been treated should not become a father unless 6 months has passed.