Ovarian Damage during Chemotherapy in Autoimmune Diseases: Broad Health Implications beyond Fertility

Wendy Marder, Senait Fisseha, Martha Ganser, Emily C. Somers
In: Clinical Medicine Insights: Reproductive Health · 2012 · vol. 6(6) , pp. 9–18 · doi:10.4137/cmrh.s10415 · PMID:23970822 · W1974579231
article OA: gold CC0
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

Cyclophosphamide treatment for autoimmune diseases risks ovarian damage and associated long-term health issues, making ovarian protection strategies like GnRH analogs crucial for patient management.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Women with autoimmune diseases such as lupus, scleroderma, and vasculitis receiving cyclophosphamide for severe disease manifestations risk primary ovarian insufficiency(POI) due to gonadotoxicity of this therapy. In addition to loss of reproductive potential, POI is associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality. Practitioners caring for women requiring gonadotoxic therapies should be familiar with long-term health implications of POI and strategies for ovarian preservation. Accumulating evidence supports the effectiveness of adjunctive gonadotropin releasing hormone analog (GnRH-a) for ovarian protection during gonadotoxic therapy in cancer and autoimmune populations. GnRH-a is less costly and invasive than assisted reproductive technologies used for achievement of future pregnancies, but is not Food and Drug Administration approved for ovarian preservation. This review focuses on POI comorbidities and strategies for mitigation of related sequelae, which can accumulate over decades of hypoesteogenism. These issues are arguably more pronounced for women with chronic autoimmune diseases, in whom superimposed POI further heightens risks of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. Therefore, even if future pregnancy is not desired, ovarian protection during gonadotoxic therapy should be a major goal of disease management.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Citation neighborhood (2-hop)

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. Outer rings show 2-hop neighbours — papers reached through the immediate citers/citees. [ collapse to 1-hop ]

References (100)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK