Tag: Fertility Preservation
Pediatric cancer, a disease once thought to be primarily incurable, now has an 80% cure rate as a result of clinical advances in technology, pharmaceuticals and screening. For many young patients and their families, survival takes precedence over all other issues immediately following a cancer…
Read More
Fertility preservation services are expanding as advances in cancer treatment are made, allowing people to live longer and fuller lives. As a result, quality-of-life issues including fertility preservation, are a concern for more and more cancer patients within their reproductive years. In a new article…
Read More
The Oncofertility Consortium is pleased to announce the launch of the 2012 Oncofertility Conference webpage! For anyone who doesn’t know yet, the 6th annual Oncofertility Conference (#oncofert12 for you Twitter folks!) is being held in Chicago this fall, September 26th-28th. This year will prove to…
Read More
As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, certain health care providers have a unique role in communicating fertility preservation information to newly diagnosed cancer patients. For example, often a gynecologist is the primary health care provider for many young women, therefore, based on “regular and consistent”…
Read More
This week is the 10th Annual National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week, beginning April 2nd and ending on April 8th. In April 2003, National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week was launched, and organizations and clinical institutions throughout North America began partnering to raise awareness about…
Read More
At the Oncofertility Consortium, we stress the importance of collaboration among clinicians, basic scientists, and the humanities in an effort to ensure that cancer patients have fertility options after treatment. This is no small feat, but the emerging field of oncofertility is constantly evolving as…
Read More
Christi Sodano from the Medill School of Journalism brings us the following insight on the global needs in fertility preservation for young patients. Read her first blog post. _______ By Christi Sodano- No longer just an old person’s disease, cancer among young people is increasingly…
Read More
A retrospective study is being published today that gives us a better idea of the barriers to fertility preservation among women with cancer. In the study, about 1,000 women who were diagnosed with cancer between 1993 and 2007, were asked about their counseling on fertility…
Read More
As previous studies have shown, women diagnosed with cancer during their reproductive years often do not receive adequate consultation, and sometimes none at all, regarding the fertility risks of cancer or its treatment. Fertility is a unique survivorship issue that young cancer patients face, which…
Read More
What does empowerment mean to you? Does it mean giving someone the authority or power to do something… because that’s what you’ll find if you look it up? The word is not a new one – it originated around the 17th century and the meaning…
Read More
Breast cancer is the number one cancer women are diagnosed with; however, the survival rate for young women diagnosed with cancer in its early stages has improved considerably over the last 20 years. Today, many young women diagnosed with breast cancer can expect long-term survival,…
Read More
A cancer diagnosis can be daunting to put it mildly, but add to that potentially sterilizing chemotherapy and radiation regimes and a young cancer patient faces a future of uncertainty in terms of their fertility. Fertility preservation is an option which should be discussed with…
Read More
We often discuss the many ways young people can preserve their fertility prior to undergoing medical procedures that may leave them sterile. One of these fertility preservation options, ovarian tissue cryopreservation, or freezing, has recently been reported in the Lancet medical journal, to also successfully…
Read More
By Nadia Johnson, Co-Director of the Oncofertility Saturday Academy On Saturday, February 18th, 31 high school girls hailing from six different local Chicago high schools celebrated the culmination of the sixth annual Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA) with a family day and graduation event. OSA is…
Read More
It’s only March and two of the Oncofertility Saturday Academies (OSA) have already completed their graduation ceremonies. With this newest class, the Oncofertility Saturday Academies have educated more than 240 students across the US. Last weekend, Mary Zelinski, PhD, who heads one of the Oncofertility Consortium‘s research…
Read More
As we have covered in past blogs, young people account for about 10% of all cancer patients. As science, research and advocacy evolve, more young people are SURVIVING cancer and going on to lead healthy and productive lives. Nonetheless, young cancer survivors are in a…
Read More
For all those young adult readers out there and even for those who are in no way eligible for that category anymore, John Green has just released his 4th fiction book, The Fault in Our Stars, starring two, young cancer stricken protagonists. Though the topic…
Read More
Fertility sparing procedures which were once infrequent and under utilized, are now more commonly performed in young men and women facing a cancer diagnosis. A recent article in the February issue of the American College of Surgeons Bulletin, entitled Gynecologic Oncology Surgeons Spare Patients’ Fertility,…
Read More
A newly released memoir from cancer survivor, Michelle Whitlock, delves into her experiences with HPV, cervical cancer, fertility preservation and love in a book that you will read from start to finish in one sitting. How I Lost My Uterus and Found My Voice is an…
Read More
A few weeks ago we wrote a blog post on the upcoming Supreme Court case that addresses whether a child conceived after the death of a biological parent, such as one who underwent fertility preservation, is eligible for survivor benefits through the Social Security Administration.…
Read More
A new journal article by Oncofertility Consortium members explores the fertility and parenthood concerns of adolescent and young adult (AYA) female cancer survivors and the various components that lead to their reproductive decisions. The qualitative study that begot this article aimed to provide additional insight…
Read More
This March, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about its first case on oncofertility. The case involves the Capato couple, a husband and wife from Florida who dealt with Mr. Capato’s diagnosis of esophageal cancer. Prior to beginning cancer treatment, the Capato’s…
Read More
In the next few weeks, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) will be hosting an exciting new Grand Rounds session with Oncofertility Consortium member, Dr. Jennifer Hirshfeld-Cytron, as the guest speaker. “Legal and Ethical Implications of Fertility Preservation: A Case Based Approach,” will take…
Read More
From left: Irene Su, Laxmi Kondapalli and Maureen Prewitt This is the final installment in a 3-part blog series featuring Oncofertility Consortium member, Laxmi Kondapalli, MD, MSCE. In this post, we take a look at her current position at the University of Colorado and her…
Read More
