Anaplastic Astrocytoma III, sperm questions with Temodar

Hello,

Some intros: I'm 25. I was a Peace Corps volunteer who was back on home leave. Coming back from a wedding on 9/6/09, I had a seizure while driving--thank goodness nothing happened then. I went to the emergency room in Portland and had a variety of scans done, blood clot, ct, mri's etcs. The MRI indicated a mildly enhancing 6cm x 2 cm x 2 cm tumor. That was unfortunate. I had surgery on 9/14/09 at cornell wiell with Dr. T. Schwartz. The surgery was successful (post clear, as clear as possible MRI) His initial frozen section pathology was that it was a low grade tumor, unfortunately the final pathology report indicated an anaplastic astrocytoma grade 3. Kind of a bummer.

I'm about to get treated at Memorial Sloan soon, however I have a few concerns. My treatment, a clinical trial, will be concurrent radiation and temodar for 42 days. Then a few weeks break. Then I'll be randomized to one of two arms--1 week on temodar 1 week off, or every day for 6 months. I'm not sure which one just yet. The total dose will be higher than the usual 5/23 but spread out. 

My question is about banking sperm. My doctor has suggested that I bank sperm before treatment. I will probably go this Sunday, Tuesday and possibly Friday. After the 6 months and then 6 more months post temodar how many men are fertile on this board? I figure if I ask as many boards as possible, I will find some general trends. I did do a search and this hadn't come up before. 

There is one clinical trial at Wake Forest that is assessing sperm count and temodar. I emailed the researchers recently. 

Cool,

Fahd.

On 10/9/2009 garlicknots wrote:

Hello,

Some intros: I'm 25. I was a Peace Corps volunteer who was back on home leave. Coming back from a wedding on 9/6/09, I had a seizure while driving--thank goodness nothing happened then. I went to the emergency room in Portland and had a variety of scans done, blood clot, ct, mri's etcs. The MRI indicated a mildly enhancing 6cm x 2 cm x 2 cm tumor. That was unfortunate. I had surgery on 9/14/09 at cornell wiell with Dr. T. Schwartz. The surgery was successful (post clear, as clear as possible MRI) His initial frozen section pathology was that it was a low grade tumor, unfortunately the final pathology report indicated an anaplastic astrocytoma grade 3. Kind of a bummer.

I'm about to get treated at Memorial Sloan soon, however I have a few concerns. My treatment, a clinical trial, will be concurrent radiation and temodar for 42 days. Then a few weeks break. Then I'll be randomized to one of two arms--1 week on temodar 1 week off, or every day for 6 months. I'm not sure which one just yet. The total dose will be higher than the usual 5/23 but spread out. 

My question is about banking sperm. My doctor has suggested that I bank sperm before treatment. I will probably go this Sunday, Tuesday and possibly Friday. After the 6 months and then 6 more months post temodar how many men are fertile on this board? I figure if I ask as many boards as possible, I will find some general trends. I did do a search and this hadn't come up before. 

There is one clinical trial at Wake Forest that is assessing sperm count and temodar. I emailed the researchers recently. 

Cool,

Fahd.

 

Hell Fahd,

Our son 34 y.o. was advised to have his sperm banked if he wanted more children. He has two. The chemo causes low sperm count when taken. The doctor never gave further information relative to a possibility of defective sperm. If you want to have children (as a mother) I suggest that you bank your sperm. This way you know you have healthy sperm and will have healthy children when you are ready for them.

Our son Dx Mar 08 with AA. He chose no radiation. He is taking Temodar for 1 yr. every day.

Good luck and God Bless!

Sheryl

I received an email from the wake forest university Doctor who is researching the effects of temodar on sperm. His email (very sample size, etc.) suggested that there were no gross changes to sperm during and after treatment. However, that doesn't really help with genetic changes. 

Again, all his information was to be taken as preliminary and he advised that I continue to bank.