Male fertility preservation is required when treatment with an aggressive chemo-/-radiotherapy, which may lead to irreversible sterility. Due to new and efficient protocols of cancer treatments, surviving rates are more than 80%. Thus, these patients are looking forward to family life and fathering their own biological children after treatments. Whereas adult men can cryopreserve their sperm for future use in assistance reproductive technologies (ART), this is not an option in prepubertal boys who cannot produce sperm at this age. In this review, we summarize the different technologies for male fertility preservation with emphasize on prepubertal, which have already been examined and/or demonstrated in vivo and/or in vitro using animal models and, in some cases, using human tissues. We discuss the limitation of these technologies for use in human fertility preservation. This update review can assist physicians and patients who are scheduled for aggressive chemo-/radiotherapy, specifically prepubertal males and their parents who need to know about the risks of the treatment on their future fertility and the possible present option of fertility preservation.
International journal of molecular sciences. 2020 Jul 31*** epublish ***
Mahmoud Huleihel, Eitan Lunenfeld
The Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Genetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel., The Center of Advanced Research and Education in Reproduction (CARER), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.