当科における悪性腫瘍患者の精子凍結保存の現状と保存システムに関する検討

Abstract

Sperm cryopreservation allows patients with threatened fertility to preserve their reproductive potential. A total of 41 patients who had their semen cryopreserved at Kansai Medical University Hospital from January 2000 to March 2010 were enrolled in this study. For the first five years (2000-2005), cryopreservation was performed free of charge, while in the last five years (2006-2010), patients were charged for services and required to update their registration every 2 years. In addition, over the last five years, subjects were limited to patients treated for their original disease at our institution. The mean age of the patients was 27.7 years. The type of disease varied, and included testicular tumors (44%), hemotopoietic organ tumors (44%), and other carcinomas (12%). All specimens cryopreserved during the first five years continued to be cryopreserved without any prognostic investigation, except for one patient who had died. For those patients required to update their registration, prognostic investigation was possible in all cases, and one of the 6 patients updated their cryopreservation. In the case of the other five patients, abandonment was due to recovery of spermatogenesis in 2 cases, death from original disease in 2 cases, and 1 case of voluntary termination for reasons unknown. A paid and updated cryopreservation system may be useful for the cryopreservation of sperm as a means of prognostic investigation.