there are issues that are common to all
young adults with cancer such as
the potential for infertility because of
their cancer treatment
I didn't think about being a father at
17 and I didn't think about being cancer
patient either if I thought about it I
research it then I don't know what my
view would have been but that was the
last thing on my mind.
As someone who is approaching the age of where i need to
start thinking about having children or
where that's going to happen in my life
there's always a concern about that
especially as a woman what's going to
happen to my baby making abilities and are my eggs going to be any good later
what is this going to do the rest of my
body. I was fortunate enough that that
the kind of procedures that I had are
supposed to have minimal effects on my
ability to have children but it's still
something that could happen and the
truth is I won't know until I try.
I do kind of wish there was more information
on like the fertility aspect and that
that kind of thing because I got sort of
different stories from different people
and at the end of the day I just decided
to be safe about it and go ahead and you
know bank some sperm just in case
because I do want kids .
In our institution at Seattle Children's we've
been trying to create best practices for
ways that we can encourage people to
preserve their fertility prior to the
start of their cancer therapy so get
teenage and young adult males to go
sperm bank on a routine basis if they're
interested in that and getting selected
populations of teen and young adult
female cancer patients to bank usually
oocytes at our pediatric population is
this is now an option for again for some
cancers and in older populations of
young adults embryo cryopreservation
freezing down embryos for later use is
also a possibility
when people will become
infertile from cancer treatments
how do you predict the ovarian reserve
that's present in a woman after her
cancer therapy is done and thus defined
how early she might have menopause if
she does have menopause early so one of
the policies that we're working on is
one around insurance reform specifically
to address the needs of those who could
potentially have their fertility
impaired as a result of their cancer
treatment we know that most insurance
plans right now do not cover fertility
preservation services and and you know I
iatrogenic infertility is something
that should be covered just as breast
reconstruction is covered for women who
have to have a mastectomy if we know
that the treatment is going to
potentially cause people to lose their
fertility I think we have an obligation
to ensure that their fertility is
preserved through you know evidence
based technologies that we know work and
it should be reimbursed because the risk
is if someone takes the decision as to
whether or not their fertility is going
to be impaired and makes a less
efficacious treatment decision based on
that reality they're putting themselves
themselves at risk and so we want people
to be able to make the best decisions
for themselves and not have to make the
choice should I should I take the
treatment that's recommended and risk my
fertility being preserved or preserve my
fertility and don't
take the recommended treatment that's a
that's a terrible choice to have to make
and it's a necessary when it's based on
economic or insurance issues