In addition to the obvious fear and heartache, young men diagnosed with cancer are at a great risk of becoming infertile due to treatments like chemotherapy, radiation, or even surgery. Though many successfully fight the cancer, the thought of potential future children often gets ignored as focus is completely turned to the fight for survival. Now two foundations are working with a sperm bank to make sperm sampling and storage a breeze, straight from the oncologist’s office.
The kits — which will be distributed to oncology professionals nationwide starting this month — contain the materials and instructions necessary for patients to produce a usable sperm sample at home or in the hospital. It includes a postage-paid package for fast delivery to Cryogenic Laboratories Inc., a Roseville, Minn., sperm bank, so no ice is needed for transport. Cryogenic Laboratories will charge $625 for processing and freezing the specimen for one year. The storage cost of each subsequent year — frozen sperm can remain potent for decades — is $280. In some cases, insurance will help defray that cost.
The kit, called Live:On, is also designed to eliminate a dilemma facing some men: whether to postpone treatment while pursuing sperm preservation. Gathering information about sperm preservation — where and how to do it, how to ship off a specimen if no bank is nearby — can take a few days. That could delay treatment of some fast-growing cancers. Armed with the kit soon to be available in oncologists’ offices, however, a patient could preserve his child-bearing options in a matter of hours.
Cryogenic Laboratories will donate an unspecified percentage of its storage fees to its two partners in the effort, the Lance Armstrong Foundation and Fertile Hope, an organization dedicated to increasing fertility options for young cancer patients. Through Fertile Hope, financially strapped patients can apply for discounts.
Read on at the WSJ’s Health Journal…
UPDATE: Press release from the Lance Armstrong Foundation …
Product page: LIVE:ON …
