Having a child after ATG/cyclosporine?
 

Hi,

Is it possible for a male patient to father a child after having SAA and undergoing immunosuppressive therapy, possibly ATG/cyclosporine?

I did my research and found following threats:
1. ATG/cycloporine may act as a chemo drug, which may cause temporary or permanent infertility
2. If a patient undergoes 4-day Cytoxan treatment (as it is at John Hopkins), then it may affect his testosterone levels, which eventually may adversely affect his fertility
3. blood transfusions may cause iron overload which may adversely affect reproductive organs in both men and women
4. In case BMT is needed, then the chance of being infertile (for males) is quite big

Please correct me if I'm wrong above. Can you please share your experiences regarding this issue? If I had ATG/cyclosporine treatment, is it possible for me to father a child afterwards? Have you heard of similar cases. Or if I have iron overload in my body (and it adversely affects my reproductive organs), how much time it takes for iron to drop to normal level?

I am trying to create different threads for different subject I have questions about. I could include them in one thread, but I thought this might be useful for someone who might be looking up similar questions. If I'm doing it wrong, sorry guys for "spaming" the forum.


Thanks!

All of your questions basically have the same answer. It is possible that fertility will be impacted. Unfortunately, there is no way to predict who will have a problem and who will not. In other words, you won't know until after you have treatment. Fertility issues do happen. Some are permanent others aren't.

Maybe you should look into freezing your sperm to ensure that you can father children after your recovery. Women have done this with their eggs for the same reason.

Thank you Marlene. I know, it's very hard to say whether it will happen or not, or whether somebody will eventually be "cured" with ATG or even BMT. Maybe I was hoping to hear some stories with actual experiences, which might give me some idea about what "might" happen, good and bad with equal chances.