Freezing semen doubles chances of fatherhood for men after treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma
In the first study to investigate the impact on fatherhood of freezing semen prior to cancer treatment, researchers questioned 902 male survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma in five European countries (France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy and Switzerland) and found that among the 334 who wanted to have children, the availability of frozen semen doubled their chances of doing so when compared with men who had not frozen their semen. Dr Marleen van der Kaaij (MD), who carried out the work while she was a PhD student at the University Medical Centre in Groningen (The Netherlands), said: "Our study shows that cryopreservation of semen before cancer treatment has a large impact: one in five children born after Hodgkin lymphoma treatment was born using cryopreserved semen. …