open access (young cancer survivors) JCI - Eliminating malignant contamination from therapeutic human spermatogonial stem cells

JCI 

 Introduction

Over 12,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in the US, and it has been estimated that a male infant has a 1 in 300 chance of being diagnosed with a malignancy by the age of 20 (1). Fortunately, success rates in treating childhood cancer have increased dramatically over the past few decades, and now approximately 80% of children survive following treatment (2, 3). Given this growing cohort of adult survivors of childhood cancers, emphasis is now being placed on quality of life issues following successful treatment. Many therapies to treat cancer are gonadotoxic and can lead to infertility, and fertility potential has an important impact on quality of life according to cancer survivors (4–7). In fact, the American Society of Clinical Oncology now recommends that the reproductive risks of cancer therapies and fertility preservation options should be routinely discussed with patients before beginning treatment (4, 8)..........