About this study
When young patients have cancer, they often get chemotherapy. Some chemotherapy can hurt the ovaries. Ovaries are the body parts that hold eggs and hormones that form babies later. Hormones help control when and how babies develop. If the ovaries get hurt, it might be hard or impossible to have a baby without help or treatment. This study is needed to find ways to protect the ovaries when cancer treatment can cause damage.
This study looks at a medicine called triptorelin. Triptorelin works by slowing down the ovaries and the hormones they make. It makes the ovaries rest while the patient gets chemotherapy. The idea is that a resting ovary might be less likely to get hurt by the chemotherapy.
In this study, some patients will get triptorelin before starting chemotherapy, and some will not. This makes it easier to see if triptorelin helps protect the ovaries.
Doctors will check how the ovaries are doing by measuring hormones that show how well the ovaries are working. They will look at these hormone levels for 2 years after chemotherapy. The study also checks other things like:
- How often periods come back
- Signs of low estrogen (a hormone)
- How the patients feel overall
If the study shows that triptorelin helps protect the ovaries from damage, doctors may use it more often for young patients getting cancer treatment. This could help more people be able to have children when they are older. It also may help doctors learn how to keep their fertility even after chemotherapy.
Eligibility overview
- Under age 40
- Newly diagnosed cancer, except for breast cancer
- Patient started having menstrual periods more than 6 months ago