Children’s bodies are amazing! They are capable of so much
regeneration and renewal. Today when kids have cancer, often the
treatment includes both radiation and multiple chemotherapeutic
agents. The survival rates are now so good, that people are now
looking into the long-term effects of these toxic exposures –
especially on the sensitive reproductive organs. Encouragingly,
about 94% of young adult women who had been treated for
childhood cancer still have working ovaries, according to a
study from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center that
appeared in the May 2006 Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and
Metabolism. This is good news in three ways. First, for all
kids, it shows how resilient children’s bodies can be to even
the most toxic exposures. Second, for girls with cancer, it
suggests a bright outlook for the future. Third, the study
helped define which girls were most likely to lose fertility:
most of those whose ovaries failed had received radiation
directly to the ovaries. Exposure to the chemot