Attitudes regarding fertility preservation in female adolescent cancer patients

Abstract

Infertility is a devastating side effect of cancer treatment. Advances in fertility research have brought new preservation techniques to the forefront for women. The implication of this research in the field of pediatric oncology has not been reported. The objective of this study was to determine whether female adolescents with a diagnosis of cancer and their parents were interested in trying to preserve fertility. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of female patients, aged 10 to 21 years, and their parents. There were 39 parent/adolescent pair responses, 3 parent-only responses, and 8 adolescent-only responses. We found that adolescents and parents had thought about the future and were interested in research treatments to help preserve fertility, but not willing to postpone cancer therapy. Achieving a state of good health was most important to the adolescent group (P<0.001). There was no statistical difference between attitudes of parents and adolescents. In summary, parents and female adolescents are interested in options to help preserve fertility during cancer treatments, but they are not willing to postpone treatment for this purpose.