Fertility Preservation in Children with Cancer - From Bench to Bedside


If you are interested in attending this event, please contact Dr Jen Southcombe at seminars@wrh.ox.ac.uk

Childhood cancer survival rates have increased dramatically over recent decades and currently >80% of children with cancer will survive over the long-term. This has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of young adults experiencing late effects of treatment, including infertility. Ovarian tissue transplantation has recently proven successful for fertility restoration in girls. However, for prepubertal males due to receive gonadotoxic therapy there are currently no clinical options to preserve fertility. Experimental approaches include removing testicular tissue from the patient prior to treatment for cryostorage and subsequent re-transplantation or in-vitro maturation of germ cells. An alternative approach would be to co-administer treatments that can protect the testis from chemotherapy-induced damage. This seminar will describe the current status of clinical and research activity in fertility preservation in prepubertal patients due to receive gonadotoxic therapies.