Shannen Doherty claims IVF journey triggered breast cancer

 

Shannen Doherty offered an insight into her IVF journey, revealing how she thought it triggered her breast cancer.

In a recent episode of Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty podcast, the 52-year-old actress revealed her cancer journey, associating it with her in vitro fertilization (IVF) during her marriage to husband Kurt Iswarienko.

Speaking to her friend and oncologist, Dr. Lawrence Piro, the actress talked about the desire to be a mom not for herself but for her husband.

She admitted: "Not only did I want a child for myself, but I wanted it for my husband. I wanted it for our marriage, I wanted him to have that part of himself fulfilled as well."

Doherty highlighted that she met her husband “at the time, later in years and you know, a multitude of things happen. And so when it was time to have that decision, we chose to have we needed IVF, and I did a bunch of rounds of it."

She, at the time, thought it was IVF that contributed to her cancer and had a great impact on her health, noting: "A lot of other women that I knew that did IVF that ended up getting breast cancer as well.”

The Fortress actress continued, “Sort of the numbers all started stacking up in my head that if you sort of have a cell that's a little wonky and that's sitting on the edge of maybe turning spreading cancer ... that all the hormones that you're pumping your body from IVF are only going to up that chance of it. That was, at least, my thinking."

The actress briefed on her cancer journey starting from the scare till therapy, referring to it as a “road to recovery.” 

She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, after which she underwent chemotherapy and other treatments until going into a remission in 2017.

On February, Doherty revealed her cancer had progressed to stage 4.