What can a boy's cancer doctor do to protect his fertility?
- More about how a child's doctors can protect his or her fertility
- An animation shows how cancer and cancer treatment affect male fertility
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Dr. Gosiengfiao, Pediatrician
In order to preserve fertility in males, one option would be to do sperm banking which is an option usually only for adolescence because younger boys usually don’t ejaculate yet and so you can’t really collect sperm from them. And then the second option would be if they are going to receive radiation, you can shield their testes from the effects of radiation. However, depending on where the primary tumor was, that may or may not be an option as well. And then again for sperm banking, what we've found is that usually, kids who are 14 or younger usually are not as successful in terms of sperm banking. Some of them are shocked when you present that option to them or are just unable to donate sperm.
