Grant: Catalyst Grant: Biomedical & Clinical Approaches to Improving Quality of Life

Many cancers affect young men and boys. With the advances in medical treatment and our ability to detect cancer early, many of these patients can survive cancers with a good quality of life. Previous research from our group demonstrated that cancers and their treatments could damage the reproductive system. Although sperm banking can help preserving the fertility, in boys who have not yet entered puberty, there is currently no strategy to preserve their fertility. We propose to develop a team involving various healthcare professionals including scientists, clinicians, psychologists, pediatricians and cancer specialists to evaluate if, before cancer treatment, we can safely obtain and store spermatogonial stem cells, which are the sources of sperm cells and can be found in young boys even before puberty. We will evaluate if these cells can eventually be transplanted back to the testes, once they have survived their cancer and are mature reproductively, to allow their fertility to recover. Additionally, we proposed to structure various forms of information-exchange sessions with various healthcare providers, patients who survived childhood cancers and their family members to learn about their concerns and needs of information regarding fertility care. Information generated from this second part of our study will help us to develop new guidelines to inform healthcare providers for young boys with cancer how to provide proper counseling related to infertility to them and their family from the time of diagnosis to the various stages of their recovery.