Zaraq Khan, M.B.B.S. , chair of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility and a minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, reviews an article he and colleagues published in the April 2020 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The article provides an in-depth look at options for fertility preservation in women and girls. T hese options are primarily for patients who have a cancer diagnosis.
Mm hmm. Fertility preservation is a fairly new field of medicine where we are still at our infancy, and our goals right now is to create general awareness throughout the medical community. My name is Sara Khan, and I'm the interim chair in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, as well as a consultant in minimally invasive gynecologic surgery in the department of O B G Y n here at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Today, I'll be talking about our review article, Fertility preservation and Women Indication and options for therapy. It's a privilege to talk to you about our review today and give you an overview of various forms of fertility, preservation options and women we wanted with this review to create a general awareness in all physicians about the various types of fertility preservation options we have available for women. The biggest reason why our patients require fertility preservation are typically in the setting of a new cancer diagnosis. A term coined for that is primarily called Uncle Fertility, where a young woman in their reproductive age is faced with a devastating diagnosis of cancer and has to undergo chemotherapeutic regimens or radiation therapy as a treatment modality for their cancer, which unfortunately takes a big toll on the reproductive potential of that female. This is where we come in and fill that void of fertility preservation. In the article, we talk about the biggest reason for fertility preservation, which is Uncle Fertility, and we talk about various strategies of how to approach uncle fertility fertility preservation. We talk about the effects of chemotherapeutic agents on ovarian reserve, and we talk about the high risk medications that women use for cancer therapy and talk about the referral process and then various measures for fertility preservation in such women. We also highlight in the article certain other conditions that are usually ignored for fertility preservation. And there are certain metabolic diseases that also require disease modifying medications that could be done at a toxic. And one of the emerging field in fertility preservation is now called deferred reproduction women that are delaying childbearing due to careers or due to certain circumstances in their life, and we we cover areas for fertility preservation in such circumstances as well. Overall fertility preservation consists of either freezing eggs or embryos or, in certain cases, freezing ovarian tissue for later on ovarian tissue transplantation that regains fertility potential. We also talk about various other techniques, like Oprah Pixie, which is physically removing the ovaries outside of the field of radiation and also talk about certain other medications, like G and R H analog, that put the state the ovary in a state of hibernation during the time of treatment, which preserve function for the future. Our review covers all these aspects and details, and we hope that the reader would enjoy reading about a brand new, exciting field of medicine that has given so much promise to a lot of our patients that we see in the clinic. We feel honored to help these women in such a difficult time in their lives and giving them any glimpse of positivity are a glimmer of hope for the future really goes a long way in these circumstances. At Mayo Clinic, we worked tirelessly to have a fertility preservation program up and running for women of all age. This also includes women and young girls in pediatric adolescent age group. We work very closely with the Department of Oncology as well as the Department of Pediatrics to make sure that these patients can get seamless care at Mayo Clinic, even though fertility preservation is that, as it is at its infancy, we have newer, exciting data coming in every day from Europe, North America and globally. That shows the impact of fertility preservation on women's lives and, actually family's lives. We hope that articles like this can create general awareness not only in obstetricians and gynecologists, but for physicians across the medical field where we know that they are the first people to see. For example, when we started this program, a lot of awareness had to go towards hematology and oncology, as well as our colleagues in rheumatology that use medications that could be done at a toxic. And it's so nice to see the increased numbers of referrals and seeing the right people for this kind of procedure. And together we hope that we can continue serving these women and really serve their best interests for potential childbearing and be an insurance for their fertility for the future. We hope you enjoyed this review article. Thank you so much. We hope you found this presentation from the content of our website valuable. 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