Shannen Doherty Reflects on IVF and 'Desperately' Wanting a Baby Amid Cancer Treatments

Shannen Doherty is diving in to the medical side of her stage 4 cancer battle, inviting her oncologist for a discussion of her treatments and experience on the latest episode of her podcast. Speaking with Dr. Lawrence Piro, Doherty reflects on one the difficult choices she had to make throughout the course of her journey. 

On the Jan. 1 installment of her iHeartPodcasts show, Let's Be Clear with Shannen Doherty, the 52-year-old star looks back on undergoing IVF treatments during her marriage to Kurt Iswarienko and how she previously believed the experience could have been connected to her 2015 breast cancer diagnosis. 

"I believed that the reason why I got cancer was because I did IVF," she admits. "I met my husband at the time later in years and a multitude of things happened, and so when it was time to have that decision, we needed IVF and I did a bunch of rounds of it." 

Doherty says that she came to the conclusion based on anecdotal evidence among other women that she knew personally. 

"A lot of other women that I knew that did IVF that ended up getting breast cancer as well, sort of the numbers all started stacking up in my head," she explains. "If you sort of have a cell that's a little wonky and that's sitting on the edge of maybe turning, spreading cancer -- blah, blah, blah -- that all the hormones that you're pumping into your body from IVF are only going to up that chance. That was at least my thinking." 

Doherty's belief led her to decline treatment with the breast cancer drug Tamoxifen after she went into remission in 2017. 

"When I got the, 'You're all clear' remission after chemo and all of that, I knew I wasn't doing IVF anymore because I was already in menopause," Doherty shares. 

"I don't want to say that I made a very uninformed decision, I'm a researcher, I'm hardcore," she continues. "My decision was, at the time, based on sort of the facts that I knew, that I had investigated, and you in fact did keep on encouraging me to take the Tamoxifen and I was like, 'Absolutely not.'" 

Dr. Piro, CEO of the Cedars-Sinai affiliated Angeles Clinic and Research Institute, chimes in to acknowledge that Doherty still wanted a baby at the time. 

"Desperately," she replies. 

"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," she says. "It seemed like a calculated risk that wasn't too bad of one to take." 

In 2020, it was revealed that Doherty's breast cancer had returned and was at stage four. 

Then, over the course of 2023, Doherty said that the cancer had spread to her brain and to her bones. The same year, she also filed for divorce from Iswarienko amid allegations of infidelity. 

She continues to address her health on her weekly podcast, and recently told ET how she hopes to make a difference by sharing her story. 

"I just hope that any industry -- whether it be the entertainment industry, whether it be banks, whether it be where people are getting jobs -- not look at people with stage 4 cancer, with which whatever kind of cancer it is, and count them out and say, 'Well, they're gonna get too tired,' or 'They're not gonna remember this,' or 'They’re gonna make mistakes,'" Doherty told ET of the goals for her podcast.

"I hope that they realize that people with cancer, really with any terminal disease, there's a level of appreciation for every second of every day of your life that you pay attention to detail even more," she continued. "I hope that they realize that... people that are sick like I am need to work desperately, because it's what helps us keep going forward."

The podcast has also given Doherty the opportunity to find and focus on the right "priorities," particularly as she goes from welcoming on guests ranging from a former co-star to her oncologist.

"The perspective of the podcast is you really want this great sort of healthy balance with it of telling your whole life story," she said, "but part of that really is the cancer journey and making sure that if there's any way I can help anybody else that's going on this journey, whether it be a family member with a mom, a sister, a girlfriend, a wife, a grandmother, or a man going through it, if they can listen in and learn something that might help them, then that also deserves equal, if not more, time on the podcast."

She also addressed her continued desire to be a mother. 

"I have looked at adopting, and all sorts of different options. I think I struggle a lot with my cancer diagnosis, and how fair it is," Doherty said. "I'm in treatment, and I'm gonna see if that treatment works. See what’s coming down the pipeline, what clinical trials, and if I feel like I can give a long enough time to a child, then I'll definitely do it."

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