PhD and Julia Tager, BS for their assistance with data collection during Phase I of the study and to Kelly Scherger and Laura Reiman for data collection at their sites. We thank Samantha Holden for illustrating the drawings of the body figure used in Checking IN. The authors have no conflicts of interests to declare. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02423031.
Background
Oncofertility is a developing field of increasing importance, particularly in pediatric oncology, where most patients are likely to survive long‐term and have not yet had the opportunity to have children.
Aims
We performed a quality improvement initiative to increase our rates of fertility preservation counseling and referral through the implementation of a pediatric oncofertility team, and we report outcomes 7 years following implementation of our initiative.
Methods and results
We compare our baseline oncofertility survey to 44 post‐intervention survey respondents and electronic medical record documentation for 149 patients treated in 2019. Ninety‐five percent of post‐intervention survey respondents recalled fertility counseling (baseline 70%, p = .004) and 89.3% were appropriately referred for fertility preservation (baseline 50%, p = .017). Counseling was documented in 60.4% of charts; 81% of patients analyzed by chart review were appropriately referred for fertility preservation. Fertility preservation outcomes differed by sex assigned at birth.
Conclusion
Creation of an oncofertility team produced improvements in fertility counseling and fertility preservation referral across an extended period of time.
We report outcomes 7 years following implementation of a pediatric
oncofertility team. We compare our baseline oncofertility survey to 44
post-intervention survey respondents and electronic medical record
documentation for 149 patients treated in 2019. 95% of
post-intervention survey respondents recalled fertility counseling
(baseline 70%, p=0.004) and 89.3% were appropriately referred for
fertility preservation (baseline 50%, p=0.017). Counseling was
documented in 60.4% of charts; 81% of patients were appropriately
referred for fertility preservation. Fertility preservation outcomes
differed by sex. Creation of an oncofertility team produced sustained
improvements in fertility counseling and fertility preservation
referral.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.