Twenty-year oncology sperm banking experience at a Canadian academic fertility centre: a retrospective study examining the usage and reproductive outcomes from oncology patients

Abstract

Background Many cancer treatments pose a threat to fertility for patients. Semen cryopreservation before cancer treatment is an effective method to preserve fertility. There are sparse long-term data on the usage of samples from Canadian oncology sperm banks.Methods A retrospective chart review of all oncology sperm banking samples at a Canadian academic fertility centre from 2001 to 2020 was conducted.Results From 2001 to 2020, 4521 samples were banked by 2504 patients. The most frequent diagnoses among these patients were testicular cancer (29.5%) and lymphoma (26.9%). Of these patients, only 81 (3.2%) patients returned to use their samples with intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment and 62 (2.5%) patients transferred their samples to another clinic. The time between banking and return for usage of the sperm ranged from 1 to 131 months with a median of 18 months after banking. A total of 66 IVF cycles (104 embryo transfers) and 101 IUI cycles from 67 patients were reviewed. Of the 67 couples who used their samples, 53.7% achieved a clinical pregnancy. The clinical pregnancy rate was 6.6% per cycle for IUI and 30.8% per embryo transfer for IVF. Higher sperm concentration or total motile count was not associated with a higher chance of pregnancy. Patients who conceived had on average 1.9±0.8 (p=0.02) more usable embryos per cycle than those who did not conceive.Conclusions Sperm cryopreservation provides a valuable option for patients with cancer to achieve parenthood after potentially gonadotoxic cancer treatment. However, the overall usage of banked oncology sperm samples is very low.