Stephanie Moisio had just married her best friend when doctors told her she had stage-two breast cancer.
"I couldn't even, I couldn't believe it," Moisio said.
The 29-year-old needed surgery, chemotherapy and radiation – treatments that could jeopardize her chances of starting a family.
"So we came home, digested all of this and then we started thinking, 'Oh my God. We're never going to have kids," said Moisio.
Moisio chose to freeze her eggs, and Cleveland ClinicDr. Halle Moore offered her an additional option – the injectable drug goserelin. It's a synthetic hormone that puts a woman's ovaries in a "resting" state.
"To basically put them in a temporary menopause during the chemotherapy treatment in the hopes of improving prospects for long-term ovarian function," said Moore, medical oncologist.
In a study of 200 patients, 22 percent who received standard chemo had ovarian failure compared to only eight percent who received goserelin and chemo. Only eight of the women who had standard chemo had successful pregnancies compared to 16 who took goserelin during chemotherapy.
Moisio and her husband tried in-vitro, but it wasn't successful. One month later, she got pregnant on her own, and then again a few years later.
"Everybody kind of knows these girls shouldn't have really been here, and we were very, very blessed," Moisio explained.
Now, she's cancer-free and enjoying every minute with her daughters.
"I never take for granted every single day," said Moisio.
Side-effects of the drug include menopause-like symptoms, such as hot flashes. The researchers also noticed that the patients who took goserelin were not only more likely to become pregnant, they actually had better cancer outcomes. Researchers plan to explore this finding in future studies.
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