Testicular Tissue Cryopreservation for Fertility Preservation in Patients Facing Infertility-causing Diseases or Treatment Regimens
University of Pittsburgh
Summary
Testicular tissue cryopreservation is an experimental procedure where a young boy's testicular tissue is retrieved and frozen. This technique is reserved for young male patients who are not yet producing mature sperm, with the ultimate goal that their tissue may be used in the future to restore fertility when experimental techniques emerge from the research pipeline.
Description
Fertility status has an important impact on the post-treatment quality of life for cancer survivors and other patients that receive gonadotoxic therapies (e.g., prior to bone marrow transplantation). Semen cryopreservation is an established fertility preserving therapy, but is not accessible or appropriate for all men. Currently there are no therapies to preserve the future fertility of preadolescent boys. However, new reproductive therapies are under development and may one day offer "fertile hope" to those survivors that do not currently have access to fertility preserving therapies. Clinica…
Eligibility
- Age range
- Not specified
- Sex
- Male
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Be male at any age. * Be scheduled to undergo surgery, chemotherapy, drug treatment and/or radiation for the treatment or prevention of a medical condition or malignancy with risk of causing permanent and complete loss of subsequent testicular function. * Or, have a medical condition or malignancy that requires removal of all or part of one or both testicles. * Have newly diagnosed or recurrent disease. Those who were not enrolled at the time of initial diagnosis (i.e., patients with recurrent disease) are eligible if they have not previously received therapy that is vie…
Interventions
- ProcedureTesticular biopsy
Testicular biopsy is performed to obtain testicular tissue for cryopreservation
Location
- Magee-Womens HospitalPittsburgh, Pennsylvania