A new study suggests that the vaccine against human papillomavirus can significantly cut the likelihood of virus-related disease even among women who have had surgery for cervical cancer caused by HPV.
Month: April 2012
Can Bicycling Affect a Woman’s Sexual Health?
Spending time on a bicycle seat, which has been linked to erectile dysfunction in men, may also be a hazard to a woman’s sexual health, a new study shows.
Think We Should Keep IVF Legal?
It used to be that people with infertility lived under a cloud of stigma and shame. People denigrated their disease, dismissing their heartbreaking inability to have children as a mere lifestyle choice. For those of us in the infertility community, we look back on that as “the good ol’ days.”
Puberty Before Age 10 – A New Normal?
One day last year when her daughter, Ainsley, was 9, Tracee Sioux pulled her out of her elementary school in Fort Collins, Colo., and drove her an hour south, to Longmont, in hopes of finding a satisfying reason that Ainsley began growing pubic hair at age 6.
DIY Sperm Banking? Some Clinics Offer At-Home Kits
On Monday, the Cleveland Clinic launched its “NextGen” sperm banking kit. Potential customers can request the kit, collect the sample “in the comfort of their own home,” as the cliché goes, and then send the kit back by overnight express.
Use of Any Type of Hormones for Menopause Symptoms Raises Breast Cancer Risk, Study Suggests
It is already known that taking pills that combine estrogen and progestin — the most common type of hormone therapy — can increase breast cancer risk. But women who no longer have a uterus can take estrogen alone, which was thought to be safe and possibly even slightly beneficial in terms of cancer risk.
Would you use a home sperm-banking kit?
Last week MSNBC.com reported that the prestigious clinic has launched a sperm banking kit — except that you won’t actually be doing any “banking” (no need to make room in the freezer). The kit really only handles the “collection” part of the process. According to the MSNBC report, customers get the kit, “collect the sample ‘in the comfort of their own home,'” and send it back to the Cleveland Clinic Andrology Laboratory and Reproductive Tissue Bank for storage and safe-keeping.
The thinking is that the new kit — called the NextGen Home Sperm Banking Service — will allow any guy who may be worried about his ability to conceive a child later to store his sperm in case he needs it at a future date — for example, if he is undergoing cancer treatment. The NextGen site notes that you need a referral from a physician to use the service, which costs $689 for the first bank, plus $140 annually to store the sperm, after the first year. Withdrawal and shipping fees also apply.
MSNBC writer Brian Alexander notes that the University of Illinois at Chicago offers much the same DIY sperm-banking kit, which they call “Overnite Male.”
There’s some debate about how well the sperm will fare when collected outside of a medical facility, then being flown hundreds or thousands of miles via overnight express to get to the bank for storage. The article notes that men in rural areas may find the service the most useful, since major cities already have sperm banks.