By: Teresa K Woodruff, PhD -
I’m in Israel for the Israel Endocrine Society meetings and have met a great number of people working on fertility preservation options for young people with cancer. What strikes me about this work is how hard the scientific community is working to come up with realistic options, especially for women and children with cancer; how thoughtful the medical community is about what can be offered to their patients and how engaged the cancer advocate community is in promoting education about fertility risks and options. A global community has emerged that is sharing ideas and best practices that creates a sense of shared purpose. There are no easy answers for those young women who do not have time to undergo hormone stimulation and we do not want to promise options that are not realistic. Having global partners means that ideas are constantly evaluated from a variety of perspectives and permits us to be pragmatic while we persevere.
