• Support Care Cancer · Apr 2017

    Physicians' practice of discussing fertility preservation with cancer patients and the associated attitudes and barriers.

    • Emi Takeuchi, Masashi Kato, Saho Wada, Saran Yoshida, Chikako Shimizu, and Yoko Miyoshi.
    • Department of Consultation, Counseling and Support Service Center, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan. etakeuch@ncc.go.jp.
    • Support Care Cancer. 2017 Apr 1; 25 (4): 1079-1085.

    PurposeThe aim of this study is to describe physicians' clinical practice of discussing fertility issues with cancer patients and determine the factors associated with such discussion.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, a nationwide Internet survey was conducted among physicians who provided daily medical care to cancer patients at hospitals or clinics. Participants answered a questionnaire assessing characteristics, discussion practices, attitudes, and barriers regarding fertility preservation.ResultsAmong the 180 participants, 42% discussed fertility issues with patients daily, and 30% had experience in referring patients to fertility preservation specialists. A multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that those who agreed or strongly agreed with the statements "physicians are responsible for discussing fertility preservation" (OR = 2.04, 95% CI 1.14-3.63, p < 0.05) and "patients who have an exceedingly aggressive disease and need immediate cancer treatment should not be told about fertility issues" (OR =1.84, 95% CI 1.09-3.10, p < 0.05) were nearly twice as likely to discuss fertility issues with patients.ConclusionsCompared to Western countries, fertility issues are less likely to be discussed in Japan. To increase opportunities for patients to discuss fertility issues, the ASCO guidelines should be widely understood. Additionally, these results suggest that physicians who are more likely to discuss fertility issues might feel more conflicted about whether they in fact should discuss such issues with patients with poor prognosis or insufficient time for cancer treatment.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.