The estimated probability of early menopause increased significantly with younger age at diagnosis. For example, using age as a predictor of early menopause in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, 56 percent of women 20 years old at diagnosis may experience menopause early, compared to 16 percent of those who were 35 years old at diagnosis.

Approximately 120,000 women younger than age 50 develop cancer each year in the United States, according to statistics from the 2006 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER), and several studies show that loss of reproductive potential after cancer treatment can negatively impact quality of life in young survivors.

While 7 percent of women across the United States report 12-month infertility according to the researchers, the rates of infertility in young cancer patients are unknown.

"We noted proportions of infertility among cancer survivors that appear considerably higher than those in the general United States population," said Joseph Letourneau, MD, the study's lead author. Letourneau was a medical student under Rosen when the research was conducted and now works as a resident physician in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina. "When counseling patients, focusing solely on short-term outcomes like loss of menses may give women unrealistically low assessments of their risks, since they could experience infertility or early menopause years to decades after treatment."

Rosen said that more research is needed since the retrospective study did not include specific patient characteristics such as genetics or variations in individual cancer treatments.

"Our analysis adds one more piece to the puzzle," he said. "Doctors will continue to need to use their gestalt and understanding of a patient's life to provide the best guidance."

Source: University of California, San Francisco