Ohio Family Travels to Women & Infants for Fertility Preservation for 2-Year Old Daughter

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

GoLocalProv Health Team

Last week, Jared Robins, MD (at right), a reproductive endocrinologist and leader of the Program for Fertility Preservation at Women & Infants Hospital, cryopreserved an ovary of a two-year-old girl from Ohio who is battling a stage four neuroblastoma. The surgical procedure, which was performed at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, offers the hope of fertility when this patient survives her treatment.

The family, who is choosing to remain anonymous, first sought the assistance of Cleveland-area oncologists but their own research led them to Dr. Robins. “Time was of the essence, as we only have a three- to four-week window before our daughter will have her stem cell transplant, destroying her fertility,” said the child’s father. “Dr. Robins called us back within 45 minutes of our initial call.”

A Team Effort

Dr. Robins then contacted Jennifer Welch, MD (at left), pediatric oncologist at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and co-principal investigator with Dr. Robins of a unique program that offers ovarian preservation to children who undergo cancer treatment. From there, a multidisciplinary team that also includes the Division of Pediatric Surgery at Hasbro Children’s Hospital set out to organize

the family’s travel to Rhode Island and to coordinate a laparoscopic procedure to harvest the girl’s ovarian tissue. With the help of the Hasbro operating room staff and in close collaboration with the Providence Ronald McDonald House, the child underwent the surgical procedure the morning after her arrival, and the family could travel back to Cleveland the next morning.

One of Few Sites in the Country

The Program for Fertility Preservation at Women & Infants offers options for fertility preservation in children, in coordination with the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. The program offers an experimental procedure that enables physicians to freeze tissue from the ovaries before they are damaged. Once the child is cured of her cancer and ready to have children, this tissue may be transplanted back into her body or eggs may be extracted from the tissue for in vitro fertilization. These experimental studies are being conducted with the support of the National Institute of Health’s Oncofertility Consortium, with the hope of determining how best to freeze the ovarian tissue of young girls. The Women & Infants /Hasbro site is one of only a few in the country and the only one in New England to be enrolling children.
For information about fertility preservation services for adults or children, call Women & Infants Program for Fertility Preservation at (401) 453-7500.