- Title:
- Oncofertility: insights from IVF specialists—a worldwide web-based survey analysis
- Journal:
- Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics; May 2019, Volume 36, Issue 5, pp 1013–1021
- Author(s):
- Gon Shoham1,2, Rachel Levy-Toledano3, Milton Leong4, Ariel Weissman1,4,Yuval Yaron1,6, Zeev Shoham7,8
- Author(s) affiliation:
- 1Sackler Faculty of Medicine Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
2School of Electrical Engineering, Wolfson Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
3Teva Europe, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
4IVF Clinic, The Women’s Clinic, Central, Hong Kong
5IVF Unit, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Edith Wolfson Medical Center, Holon, Israel
6Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis Unit, Genetics Institute, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical CenterTel AvivIsrael
7The Reproductive Medicine and IVF Unit, Kaplan Medical Center, Rehovot, Israel
8Hadassah Medical School, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
- Short description:
- This research sought to understand IVF-physicians’ knowledge of, experience with, and attitudes toward fertility preservation for cancer patients.
- Link to the journal
Abstract taken from PubMed
- Purpose:
- This research sought to understand IVF-physicians' knowledge of, experience with, and attitudes toward fertility preservation for cancer patients.
- Methods:
- A 35-question, self-report survey request was emailed to IVF providers who were registered on the IVF-Worldwide.com network (3826 clinics). Physicians submitted responses on the IVF-Worldwide.com website. Survey results were reported as a proportion of the responding clinics.
- Results:
- Survey responses were completed by 321 (8.4%) globally distributed IVF clinics, representing 299,800 IVF cycles. Of these clinics, 86.6% (278) performed fertility preservation, treating approximately 6300 patients annually. However, 18.4% of the centers reported that patients sought advice independently, without an oncologist's referral. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation was performed by 37.7% of the clinics, yet 52.6% considered the procedure experimental. IVM was performed by 16.5% of responding clinics. A majority (63.6%) of the clinics selected treatment protocols based on each patient's malignancy. Most respondents (76.3%) disagreed that fertility preservation was not yet successful enough to make it an available option. However, 44.2% believed that pregnancy rates following oocyte cryopreservation could not be determined because not enough oocyte cryopreservation patients had completed embryo transfer.
- Conclusions:
- Most clinics performed fertility preservation, tailoring protocols to each patient's disease and condition. Almost 20% of patients sought advice independently, indicating that more effort is needed to encourage oncologists to refer patients. Most survey respondents believed that data was not yet available on either live birth outcomes or the best protocol for each disease. Therefore, long-term study must continue, with the establishment of interim milestones and an outcome-tracking registry.
- Link to the paper on PubMed
