Publication details

Fertility education for adolescent cancer patients: Gaps in current clinical practice in Europe

Authors	KORTE E. SCHILLING R. BALCEREK M. CAMPBELL H. DIRKSEN U. HERRMANN G. KEPÁKOVÁ Kateřina KEPÁK Tomáš KLCO-BROSIUS S. KRUSEOVA J. KUNSTREICH M. LACKNER H. LANGER T. PANASIUK A. STEFANOWICZ J. STRAU G. RANFT A. BYRNE J. GOLDBECK L. BORGMANN-STAUDT A.
Year of publication	2020
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CANCER CARE
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Medicine
Citation
Web	https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/ecc.13279
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ecc.13279
Keywords	adolescent cancer patients; cryopreservation; fertility education; fertility impairment; fertility preservation; shared decision-making
Description	Objective As adolescent cancer patients may suffer from infertility following treatment, fertility counselling is essential. Our aim was to explore the current situation in four European countries in terms of (I) education about the risk for infertility, (II) counselling on fertility preservation, (III) patients' knowledge on fertility, (IV) sufficiency of information and (V) uptake of cryopreservation. Methods In total, 113 patients (13-20 years) at 11 study centres completed a self-report questionnaire three and six months after cancer diagnosis. Multivariate logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results As many as 80.2% of participants reported having received education about the risk for infertility prior to treatment, 73.2% recalled counselling on fertility preservation. Only 52.3% stated they felt sufficiently informed to make a decision. Inability to recall counselling on fertility preservation (OR = 0.03, CI: 0.00-0.47) and female gender (OR = 0.11, CI: 0.03-0.48) was associated with lower use of cryopreservation, whereas older age was associated with higher use. Conclusion Fertility counselling was available to a relatively high proportion of patients, and it did influence the utilisation of cryopreservation. However, many patients did not feel sufficiently informed. Further improvement is needed to enable adolescent cancer patients to make an informed decision on fertility preservation.