Imperial College London

Academic Institute

Joseph Yazbek

Unknown

No

NIBDAPC_2023_0028

Many women now prefer to delay having children, often for career or personal reasons, until they are older. As we age, the chances of developing different diseases, including tumours, rises. There are also some tumours that can develop at a young age. The treatment of tumours may require surgery and / or additional drug- based or radiation-based treatments, which can affect a patient’s ability to have children (fertility). As some patients may still wish to have children, there are ways to protect their fertility during treatment. This is known as fertility sparing, and there is interest in further developing methods to preserve and enhance fertility. Our project will collect data about patients of childbearing age who develop tumours. This will include information on the type of tumour and treatment received, patient demographics (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity), and the outcome of any fertility sparing and / or enhancing treatment received. This will help us gain a better understanding of factors affecting fertility in patients with tumours and work towards identifying predictive models to help develop patient tailored treatment plans to maximise patients’ chances of preserving their fertility.

I have been a core member of the Gynaecological Oncology Multidisciplinary Team at Queen Charlotte and Chelsea / Hammersmith Hospital, which is effectively the West London Gynaecological Cancer Centre, and also receives referrals from other parts of the UK and overseas. In our practice we see many patients coming with tumours during the child bearing age and looking for fertility sparing options. In addition I have special clinical and academic interest in borderline ovarian tumours, which most commonly affects women in the child bearing age group. Borderline ovarian tumours are an uncommon type of ovarian tumours that are not frankly malignant, but the patient my have similar tumours developing again after initial tumour removal or may develop cancer subsequently. That is why although these tumours are not classified as cancer they ideally require being surgically treated as cancer. For the past 17 years I have been studying these tumours to identify markers that can help predict their behaviour and hence be able to identify patients who can safely have fertility preservation surgery without high risk of disease progression. Contributing to and leading on studies in our trust and also national multicentre studies I developed an appreciation to the pressing need of young patients to have the option of preserving fertility with minimal risk of disease progression. I am also a member of the advisory board of Ovacome, a charity with focus on ovarian tumours, and in that role I had an opportunity to further appreciate the importance of this aspect of tumour management from communicating with patients and patient representatives.

Public Health Research

27/10/2023

Not applicable

Not applicable

One-off

TRE