Each year in the United States, about 68,000 women younger than the age of 45 are diagnosed with cancer. The battle to save their lives often comes with a devastating consequence — the treatment can leave them infertile. But new hope comes from the laboratory, where Teresa Woodruff, PhD, and other researchers and physicians at Northwestern Memorial and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine are leading a national effort to better understand the impact of cancer treatment on fertility and to identify new technologies to preserve it. Breakthrough research in the freezing and reimplantation of embryos, eggs and ovaries has made the phrase “families after cancer” a reality for many young women. Since May of 2007, 204 women have been provided fertility options at Northwestern Memorial through these efforts, with three due to give birth in April. “Patient care today should not be the same as patient care tomorrow,” said Dr. Woodruff. "We’re enthusiastically and aggressively bringing our research from the lab to the patients and broadening the options for women undergoing cancer treatment.”
Related Links: The Oncofertility Consortium | Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University | Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine | Patient and Family Resources
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Teresa Woodruff, PhD, leads the Oncofertility Consortium, one of the only programs in the nation that investigates new methods for improving fertility preservation options for children and young female patients.
The Feinberg School was awarded a $21 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to help fund the Oncofertility Consortium, which is part of a national cooperative of hospitals committed to fertility preservation.
Cancer survivor Kristen Sosa, 30, and her husband, Tony, viewed their ultrasound with Ralph R. Kazer, M.D., after a successful in vitro fertilization that followed her cancer treatment. Kristen is due to give birth in April.
The Oncofertility Consortium’s comprehensive research program is a collaboration that joins physicians and researchers at Northwestern Memorial, the Feinberg School and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
Utilizing humanely harvested tissue from primates such as monkeys and baboons, which is similar to human tissue, has advanced research that will ultimately be used to save the fertility of women who will undergo cancer treatment.
Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease and now in remission, 28-year-old Gayle Meyer, pictured with her daughter, Kaitlyn, is one of 14 women participating in the Oncofertility Consortium’s groundbreaking clinical trial in which an ovary is frozen for future use.
