Grant: Operating Grant: Boy's and Men's Health

Traditionally, infertility is seen as a women's issue in many societies and cultures. As such, research on fertility care and restoration is more extensive for women than men. Yet, in reality, a problem is found in men in ~50% of infertility cases. That men tend not to access health services, particularly for preventive care makes the situation more difficult. Then, when a risk of losing fertility emerges, as it typically occurs to cancer patients, how does it affect a man's psychosocial health? What fertility restoration strategies are effective for cancer patients? With improvement of cancer therapies, cancer survivors have been increasing. While many cancer therapies are toxic to the testis, the option to safeguard male fertility is only sperm banking. However, inadequate communication among patients, families, doctors, and nurses often causes underuse of this technique. Also, sperm banking is not applicable to even adult men when their sperm number or quality is low. For adolescents, issues such as discomfort with sperm collection, religious/cultural stigma, and unawareness of future parenting make sperm banking difficult. For children, techniques to preserve fertility do not exist, as they do not have sperm to bank. Clearly, novel counseling programs and medical intervention are required to improve the fertility potential and psychosocial health of men after cancer. To address this, we will focus on two objectives: 1) To assess needs and concerns for fertility care of boys and men who survived cancer as well as parents of childhood cancer patients, and 2) To develop a novel strategy to restore male fertility for boys and men of any age. Our research will thus help us improve the quality of counseling boys and men and provide them with a new technology, thereby raising their hope to have genetic children after cancer.