Jane Brody wrote an article that appeared in the New York Times today about family planning and cancer. She cites the fertility stories of several cancer patients and quotes Dr. Jacqueline Jeruss and Teresa Woodruff from the Oncofertility Consortium and their report from the New England Journal of Medicine (read it here: Preservation of Fertility in Patients with Cancer).

The New York Times article underlines the importance communication plays in educating patients and their families about fertility options. The first story Brody tells is of the mother of a boy with Hodgkin’s disease who finds out from a perfect stranger that cancer treatment would make her son infertile – and the doctors hadn’t warned them.

Brody also recounts the story of a 32-year old woman who was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer. It was her family members who alerted her to the side effects of the treatments - her doctor failed to mention anything either.

Brody’s article points out that fertility issues are still being neglected, especially when the cancer patient is young. But with more awareness, people may be able to delay treatment in certain cases to allow for the harvesting of eggs or sperm.

But cancer patients who are looking for fertility-preserving options face a time challenge: clinics dealing with fertility often have long waits and time is not something the patients can afford, Brody says in her article.

The New York Times article also talks specifically about the Oncofertility Consortium, stating that it is funded by the NIH. Brody also outlines the consortium’s  goals.

You can read the article here: Family Planning When Cancer Intrudes.

Teresa Woodruff will be giving a talk on Monday, April 20th, entitled “Oncofertility: The Preservation of Fertility Options for Young People with Cancer.” Her speech will be at the first plenary session of the 15th World Congress on In Vitro Fertilization and the 4th Congress on In Vitro Maturation in Geneva, Switzerland.

More than 600 doctors and scientists will gather in a multidisciplinary effort to advance discussion in these important fields. The congress is organized by the International Society for In Vitro Fertilization. 

For more information, go to the congress Web site: ISIVF 2009

Cancer. The first thing you think of is survival. But what about fertility? For young cancer patients, treatment options could impact their family life forever.

Marybeth Gerrity, the executive director of the Oncofertility Consortium, was quoted in an article earlier this month in which she explained that awareness of fertility options is key and that being able to make informed decisions is very important.

Read the article HERE.

Hi everyone!

My name is Tara Kerpelman and I’m the Science and Medicine Writer for the Oncofertility Consortium. I work here part-time. The rest of the time I’m a graduate student at Medill – the journalism school at Northwestern – where I am specializing in science and health reporting and broadcast journalism.

I became interested in the Oncofertility department when Teresa spoke to my class as a guest lecturer. I was very impressed that she was so enthusiastic and obviously really cared about educating people on the topic of oncofertility.

To learn more about the subject, I shadowed different people in the lab over the course of a week so I could learn about what is done here, and now I am being given the chance to help spread the word about oncofertility.

So in the coming weeks you will see many more posts from me and I encourage you to comment on them!

-Tara-