Experiences of medical fertility preservation
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Women’s experience of medical fertility preservation treatment
IRAS ID
264543
Contact name
Zeynep Gurtin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Z6364106/2019/08/123, Data protection reference number
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Chemotherapy can cause injury to the female reproductive potential by depleting the store of eggs. This may cause menstrual disturbance, infertility, and early menopause. Fertility preservation treatments may include egg cryopreservation, ovarian tissue cryopreservation, ovarian suppression with gonadotrophin releasing hormone agonist injections or ovarian transposition. The most commonly used method is egg cryopreservation, often known as “medical egg freezing” (MEF). MEF requires controlled ovarian stimulation, surgical oocyte collection and cryopreservation with a view to later thawing, fertilising and use in fertility treatment.(1) Our study will examine women’s experiences of FP treatment performed in UCLH. UCLH is the centre of excellence for haematological malignancy and therefore we will examine whether experience differs according to diagnosis. We treat a significant number of women with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukaemia and ovarian cancer and this will give us a broader appreciation of the experiences of different patient groups. This will be the largest study into women with a haematological malignancy undergoing FP. This study will also address women’s experience of different FP treatments such as ovarian tissue cryopreservation and ovarian transposition.
REC name
London - Brent Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/LO/0087
Date of REC Opinion
11 Feb 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion