For Young Boys With Cancer, Testicular Tissue Banking May Be Option to Preserve...(l did not appear to play a major role in...),Health

"As stressful as a child's cancer diagnosis is, many parents said they wanted to be presented with options that might lead to future success in saving their sons' fertility," said Ginsberg, the director of the Cancer Survivorship Program at Children's Hospital.

Much work remains, including advancing the laboratory science, until it will be possible to use the frozen tissue to restore fertility for these boys. The ultimate hope is that, in the future, once the patient is ready to begin a family, health care providers would thaw the preserved tissue, then reimplant it in the patient's testes or use it for other assisted reproduction technologies. Ginsberg and her co-authors are cautiously optimistic that the fruits of this current research will make using this tissue to restore fertility a reality for her patients. In the meantime, she says, the positive response to the fertility preservation program encourages Children's Hospital staff to continue their efforts within the context of this research.

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development supported this study, as did the Ethel Foerderer Award at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation.

About The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country, ranking third in National Institutes of Health funding. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 441
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