Recently, WBEZ Chicago’s Eight Forty-Eight came to the Oncofertility Consortium to interview Dr. Woodruff about fertility preservation for cancer patients.  While the interview mainly discussed new techniques that will provide hope for cancer patients facing potential infertility, the interview also discussed the Illinois Women’s Health Registry and the Oncofertility Saturday Academy.

From the WBEZ website:

Last year, Dr. Teresa Woodruff won a $21 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create the Oncofertility Consortium. There she hopes to develop new fertility treatments for people who have undergone treatment for cancer. While many people can survive a cancer diagnosis, the treatments can destroy fertility. Dr. Woodruff runs The Woodruff Lab at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and also runs the Oncofertility Saturday Academy. It brings young women from a small high school on Chicago’s South Side into the lab to learn basic biology and clinical medicine.

The audio of the interview is included!

Eight Forty-Eight Interview

Executive Director of the Oncofertility Consortium, Marybeth Gerrity was interviewed in a Medill Reports article by Anna Swindle, Making children possible: A fertility doctor’s journey.

The article talks about Marybeth’s life as it led up to her work in the field of Oncofertility from her research in how to prevent pregnancy to what she does now in fertility preservation techniques. Check it out!

Every summer, Teresa Woodruff sends out a summer reading list to the people in her lab. Because there isn’t much of a global perspective on Oncofertility yet, this year’s theme is “Global Perspectives on Reproduction” to prepare, hopefully, to create partnerships with the World Health Organization and other global health organizations.

The reading list will provide a foundation and an entry-point into the existing literature and includes some of the recent papers from the Oncofertility Consortium and, of course, the Oncofertility book by Teresa Woodruff (recently reviewed in the journal Fertility and Sterility — see blog entry dated June 4th).

Here is a copy of Teresa’s list:

1. Woodruff, Teresa K. and Snyder, Karrie Ann Sr.  Oncofertility: Fertility Preservation for Cancer Survivors.  Springer, 2007.

2. Inhorn, Monica C and Van Balen, Frank.  Infertility Around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies.   University of California Press, 2002.

3. Ginsburb, Faye D and Rapp, Ranya.  Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction.  University of California Press, 1995.

4. Edwards, Jeanette; Franklin, Sarah; Hirsch, Eric; Price, Francis; and Strathern, Marilyn.  Technologies of Procreation: Kinship in the Age of Assisted Conception.  Routledge, 1999.

5. Ellison, Peter T.  On Fertile Ground: A Natural History of Human Reproduction.  Harvard University Press, 2001.

6. Runowicz, Carolyn D., Petrek, Jeanne A. and Gansler, Ted S.  Women in Cancer: A Thorough and Compassionate Resource for Patients and Their Families.

7. Heiney, Sue P., Hermann, Joan F., Bruss, Katherine V., and Fincannon, Joy L..  Cancer in the Family: Helping Children Cope with a Parent’s Illness.  2001.

8. Eyre, Harmon J., Lange, Diane Partie, and Morris, Lois B.  Informed Decision: The Complete Book of Cancer Diagnosis, Treatment, and Recovery.   Viking, 1997.

9. Shenfield, Francoise and Sureau, Claude.  Contemporary Ethical Dilemmas in Assisted Reproduction.  Informahealthcare, 2006.

The Oregon Health and Science University Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Program at the Knight Cancer Institute was awarded Fertile Hope’s National Center of Excellence Status award on April 9th, 2009.

Fertile Hope is a non-profit organization that strives to provide information on reproductive health for cancer patients and survivors who may be facing infertility due to their cancer treatments. According to OHSU’s press release, the award “recognizes the institute’s leadership in addressing fertility issues and options for young cancer patients.”

OHSU is one of just seven healthcare facilities in the United States to have been awarded the Center of Excellence Status. The Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Program may not have succeeded as well as it has without the tremendous efforts put forth by Dr. David Lee.

An internationally reknowned researcher in the area of female fertility preservation, Dr. Lee initiated participation between the program and the physicians that treat infertility at OHSU by encouraging oncologists and infertility experts to communicate so that options for fertility preservation are now included in the counseling for young cancer patients.

Dr. David Lee works in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the OHSU Infertility Clinic. He was present at the event with Dr. Hayes-Lattin, director of the OHSU Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Program and co-chairman of the LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance, to accept the award from Fertile Hope.

Read the OHSU press release here and to read the blog entry on the award by Fertile Hope founder Lindsay Nohr Beck, click here.

Dr. Clarisa Gracia, an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, was recently pictured on the cover of Philadelphia Magazine and listed as one of the top doctors under 40 in Philadelphia, thanks to her work in Oncofertility. See her slide on the magazine’s Web site here.

Dr. Clarisa Gracia, featured on the cover (lower-center) of the magazine, was voted one of the top doctors under 40 in the area for her work in Oncofertility.

Dr. Gracia’s primary area of interest is in Oncofertility and reproductive aging. She has a clinical practice that focuses on Oncofertility. She sees cancer patients from the newly diagnosed to the survivors and counsels them on fertility preservation. She also gives her patients treatment for long-term reproductive and endocrine complications that are associated with cancer treatments.

Dr. Gracia is involved in several research projects, including investigations into the effects that cancer therapies have on reproduction, new ways of preserving fertility in cancer patients and the way different hormones change during the stages leading to menopause. 

Dr. Gracia said she was also interviewed by CN8 with one of her breast cancer patients during last year’s Cancer Week and that Star Magazine interviewed her about Christina Applegate’s breast cancer diagnosis. She also said she was featured in Cure Magazine in which she talked about the legal issues surrounding Oncofertility.

An article submitted in early March to the Emax Health Web site quotes the NEJM article by Dr. Jeruss and Teresa Woodruff. It also describes Oncofertility, explaining what it is. Furthermore, the author directs people to the MyOncofertility Web site, an effort led by the Oncofertility Consortium to educate patients on fertility options when faced with cancer.

Read the article here: New Tool Guides Doctors To Save Cancer Patients’ Fertility.

A cervical cancer survivor wrote an article on commercialappeal.com. It was published on Mother’s Day and encourages women to get tested for HPV, whether the woman has had the HPV vaccine or not.

Michelle Whitlock, who wrote “My thoughts: Simple tests can help reduce rates of cervical cancer,” mentions briefly that she was lucky enough to harvest her eggs before her treatment began.

One of the issues we have to deal with in Oncofertility is communication and dissemination of information – to have a doctor explain to you about your fertility options at such a crucial moment, when you might be running out of time to start treatment, is not very common and this must change.

Or perhaps Michelle took the initiative to find out the information on her own, which is commendable. But if you are a young child, or haven’t thought about a baby, much less a boyfriend or girlfriend, and all you are thinking about is fighting for your own life, it would be helpful to have your doctor talk to you or your family about the options available to you.

Check out the article here: HPV tests.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital is hosting a half-day conference on Saturday, May 17th called ”State-of-the-Art Hysterectomy: The Robotic Surgical Option.”

Dr. Patrick Lowe will be one of the speakers at this event. He was one of the doctors who participated in the Oncofertility Saturday Academy, teaching students from the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School about oncofertility and surgery. Those who attended Dr. Lowe’s module were given the opportunity to operate a Da Vinci robotic surgery machine – the same machine used to perform minimally-invasive hysterectomies.

Dr. Patrick Lowe from Northwestern Memorial Hospital stands by as a student from the Oncofertility Saturday Academy tries her hands at the Da Vinci robotic surgery machine, sometimes used to perform hysterectomies. Photo by Tara S. Kerpelman

The event at the hospital will include lectures, demonstrations and a talk by a patient who underwent robotic surgery.

The conference start at 8:30am and it costs $20.

For more information, go to Northwestern Memorial’s site: Robotic Hysterectomy Event.

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.

Cancer is now a disease with a variety of treatment options, which are leading to longer and more productive lives by survivors. Globally, there are 10 million people diagnosed with cancer.  10% of these newly diagnosed men and women are under the age of 45 years old. Infertility can be a consequence of many of the more aggressive chemo- and radiation therapies that prolong and save lives.  The ability to easily preserve sperm prior to cancer treatment provides hope at the time of diagnosis and families later in life for male survivors.  A notable example is Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong who has three children conceived using sperm frozen days before he underwent the massive chemo- and radiation therapy that saved his life. Unlike sperm, the female germ cell, the oocyte or egg must be retrieved surgically.  Moreover, the vast majority of collected oocytes will be immature and cannot be used immediately by a woman who is ready to start a family.  The overall hypothesis  of the program is that effective fertility-extending options can be provided to young women undergoing life-preserving cancer treatment. The purpose of our work is to bring physicians, medical ethicists, social scientists and basic scientists together to develop new strategies for fertility preservation for female cancer survivors under the new discipline of oncofertility.  And even as the lexicon is being established, complex bioethical issues face both providers and parents.  At the basic science level, complex issues of ovarian function and preservation must be addressed including the problem of follicle growth and development in vitro. Our investigative group has pioneered the development of a 3-dimensional system that supports follicle development, largely, we believe, because the links between the egg and its surrounding cells are maintained.  Using a tissue-engineered approach, we have developed an in vitro follicle growth system that supports the maturation of the enclosed oocyte, which can be fertilized and results in live, healthy and reproductively competent mice.  The goal of our program and the broader Oncofertility Consortium is to explore and expand the reproductive options available to young people facing a fertility-threatening but life-preserving cancer treatment.